readx; Early the next morning, under the protection of 1,000 light cavalry and 500 soldiers of the Imperial City Guard Regiment, Zhu Youzhen left the camp last night and continued to move east. Pen~Fun~Pavilion www.biquge.info Ma Qianxue also walked with him, this time neither riding nor walking, but instead riding a sleigh.

In fact, sledding has existed in ancient China, for example, in the Northern Song Dynasty Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Writings" mentions: "The winter moon is a small bed, and the ice is dragged on it, which is called a bed." This "Ling bed" is actually a sled, but the name is different.

However, most of the territory of ancient China was located in temperate and subtropical regions, and it was rare to be covered by snow and ice in winter, and there was no need to travel in the context of the small-scale peasant economy. Therefore, although the sleigh was invented a long time ago, it was more used for the entertainment of the rich and children, and was not put into actual production.

But now the Manchu Qing is entrenched in the northeast, where the weather is bitterly cold for nearly half of the year, and the vast snowfields are the norm. If you want to completely calm Liaodong, you must act on ice and snow. Compared with the Manchu cavalry, which was accustomed to the cold climate, the Ming army was significantly less mobile on ice and snow.

In order to solve this problem, Zhu Youzhen had already ordered the craftsmen of the military factory to make a batch of snow *top*point*small* sleds. This thing is actually very simple, it is a large square plank, with two long, thin skateboards nailed to the bottom, and a few ropes tied to the front. A mule or horse with a non-slip horsehoe nailed to pull the rope can be dragged along the sled. The road ahead has been repeatedly compacted in advance, forming a snow track that is both hard and smooth, and the speed at which the sleigh is dragged up is quite fast, even if it is a Yuan Rong cannon weighing a thousand catties.

Ma Qianxue and Zhu Youzhen rode in the same sled, which can be regarded as Zhu Youzhen's special courtesy to this Yi female general. Seeing the scenery on both sides retreating rapidly, Ma Qianxue was extremely excited, and there was constant laughter and laughter all the way.

But Zhu Youzhen is not in such a good mood as her, he has been worried for the past few days, but he is unwilling to show it in front of everyone.

The Manchu invasion caused a great loss of property in the Gyeonggi region, and other things are easy to say, but this grain is extremely important. After the main force of the Eight Banners withdrew from Guanwai, Zhu Youzhen on the one hand ordered the household department to rush grain from the south to Beijing, and on the other hand, organized the people to rush to harvest autumn grain, of course, the most important thing was to use strategic reserves to stabilize the price of grain in Beijing, ensure market supply, and provide refugees free of charge.

However, the strategic reserves were limited after all, and a rare heavy snowfall completely ruined Zhu Youzhen's plan. There was not much of the autumn grain at all, and the grain from the south could not be transported, and it was even impossible to re-sow the seeds. Moreover, the white flag is still entrenched in the Guannai, and the amount of grain and grass consumed by military operations is also an astonishing figure, and if no measures are taken and allowed to be consumed in this way, the strategic reserves will be exhausted by February or March next year at the most. At that time, it was a time of "green and yellow", and it was inevitable that there would be a large-scale famine.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen had no choice but to start the "wartime **". There are two specific measures: the first is to introduce a rationing system among refugees and workers, with only two meals a day, morning and evening, except for children, the elderly and the infirm. All rice shops in Jingshi also implement sales restrictions, only selling a fixed amount at a price per day, and each person is only limited to three catties.

The other is to implement overall planning for grain. The first specific method is to seal all the government grain depots in Hubu, Shuntianfu, Baodingfu, Hejianfu, Tianjinwei and other places, and implement unified allocation. The second is to mobilize grain merchants and wealthy households who have hoarded large quantities of grain to lend a part of their grain reserves to the government. If the mobilization is ineffective, then compulsory measures will be taken, and Jinyiwei will come forward to enter the government to "borrow grain", and to put it bluntly, it will be forcibly taken away.

The rationing system is good to say, because the vast number of people at the bottom, mainly workers and refugees, are typical vulnerable groups, if it was changed in the past, natural disasters ** rushed together, who cares about their life and death, I don't know how many people died of cold and starvation. Although it is now two meals a day, it can be guaranteed to be supplied without starvation, and the vast majority of sensible people are grateful to Dade.

In order to make the common people more able to understand and accept the rationing system, Zhu Youzhen set an example and issued an edict to the world: From now on, he himself will also eat two meals a day until the food crisis in Beijing is alleviated.

The harem concubines and palace maids also responded, and Queen Rui'er, Concubine De Bao Yulian, Concubine Li Zhu Cunqi, Concubine Chen Yuanyuan, and all the female officials and palace maids in the seven places in the palace were all changed to two meals a day. Originally, Concubine Qi Meifeng also wanted to reduce her meal, but Rui'er persuaded her on the grounds that she still had to feed the little prince Zhu Cizhao, which stopped her.

What particularly moved Zhu Youzhen was that Empress Dowager Zhang also took the initiative to reduce meals. Not only did they cut down on meals, but they also cut down on all the meat dishes in the recipe and ate only vegetarian food. After a few days, it was significantly reduced. Zhu Youzhen was quite uneasy when he learned about it, and personally wrote a letter to implore the Queen Mother to resume her daily diet, but the Queen Mother replied: "Your Majesty is the Son of Heaven, and he is a member of the community. In addition, the mourning family pious worship Buddha, the desire of the tongue, the Buddha's precepts, the mourning family is accustomed to it, Your Majesty does not need to worry, should focus on the dragon body and state affairs. ”

However, in contrast, the work of coordinating grain is extremely resistant. As soon as the decree was issued, the government and the opposition were in an uproar. Although the Beijing Times repeatedly preached the importance of temporary grain co-ordination, for grain merchants and wealthy farmers who hoarded large quantities of grain, grain was one of their most valuable private possessions, and it could never be given away to others, not even the emperor.

Many officials representing the interests of the landlord class immediately went up one after another, saying such things as "hiding wealth from the people," "the state must not compete with the people for profit," and "the gentry are the foundation of the country, and if the gentry are damaged, they will be fundamentally shaken." In short, they did not want to produce grain.

If it were something else, Zhu Youzhen might have taken into account the interests of the bureaucracy and the landlord class to some extent, and tried not to exacerbate the contradictions. But not this time, people will starve to death if there is no food, and there is no room for ambiguity. Therefore, Zhu Youzhen's attitude was also unprecedentedly tough, first rejecting Han Yi, Qian Longxi, Li Biao and other Donglin cabinet ministers who asked them to suspend the raising of grain, and then ordered Jinyi Wei to visit the Jingshi gentry one by one and persuade them to take the initiative to borrow grain.

However, so far, except for the British public Zhang Weixian who took the initiative to borrow 5,000 stone of grain, other officials rarely responded, and they all wanted to see what the emperor could do to them if they did not pay the grain. And even if Zhu Youzhen was in the Jizhou army, there were still countless twists and turns to persuade him to retract his will, which made Zhu Youzhen overwhelmed and furious.

Just as he was deep in thought in the cold wind, pondering how to deal with these short-sighted misers, a report from a scout cavalry quickly pulled his thoughts back from the Jingshi: "Long live, the forward troops of General Hao's army have begun to attack Qian'an City!" ”

Book friends 321669195, welcome to join the interaction~