At the end of February, Caoyun began to recover, the first batch of Caoyun grain 200,000 stones, these grains are borrowed from the Caoyun Governor's Palace, there are still several months before the autumn harvest, this time to levy Caoyun grain is obviously not appropriate.

The situation in Huguang and Henan was still in a stable state, Sun Chuanting and Wang Yongji did not immediately attack, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong respectively took Nanyang Mansion in Henan and Xiangyang Mansion in Huguang, and occupied all the prefectures and counties, probably affected by the famine in the north, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong did not have the next move.

However, the situation in the north, because of the obvious deterioration of the famine, Beizhili, Shanxi and Shandong have become the hardest hit areas, the common people are on the verge of collapse, the imperial court can not take so much food to help the people, the method adopted is still to exempt the people from taxes, etc., which prompts a large number of ordinary people to become homeless, the local government is strict against the homeless, not allowed to enter the city, and even the situation of beheading the homeless, some peasants are desperate, began to rebel, more are gathered together, reduced to bandits, Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong focused their activities in Henan and Huguang, and their forces were not involved in Beizhili, Shanxi, and Shandong for the time being, which allowed the government to basically suppress local rebellions.

But the emergence of such a situation obviously greatly restrained the power of the imperial court.

The emperor and the imperial court were obviously very anxious, urging Sun Chuanting and Wang Yongji to quickly start exterminating the Liukou, in their opinion, only by completely exterminating the Liukou could they truly stabilize the north.

The south is basically stable, and in Nanjing, the spring class of Donglin Academy is no longer so eye-catching, but it is the poems and words that Zheng Xunrui made in the Fule Academy, which are circulated everywhere, and have long overshadowed the limelight of the spring class. Many readers had a fierce debate, as Zheng Xunrui expected, some ill-intentioned people wanted to desperately belittle Zheng Xunrui's words, but they also wasted their efforts, after all, most of the readers are people who understand. Know what makes sense and what is vexatious.

Zheng Xunrui's tolerance of readers, so that Nanjing and even Nanzhili, Zhejiang scholars are very emotional, he did not force readers to have to help the world, which is different from the requirements of Donglin Academy, but it is a reasonable requirement to be alone, scholars can not care about the affairs of the family and country, the pursuit of their own enjoyment. But you must obey the law and customs, and you must not mess around.

The opinions of those who oppose it are also very clear, that is, scholars are not ordinary people, they must care about the affairs of the family and the country, the worries of the world first, and the joy of the world after the world, how can they indulge in the wind and snow, but unfortunately there are not many people who support such views. After all, Zheng Xunrui's words have a premise, that is, to be alone. It's a pity that some readers just say one thing with their mouths and are high-sounding, but in fact they do one thing, which is filthy.

Zheng Xunrui's words made the four sons of Donglin very faceless, and they were metaphorically described as people who said one thing and did another. Chen Zhenhui, Mao Xiang and Hou Fangyu and others are all very well-off, often lingering in the Qinhuai River, indulging in the wind and snow, but the gesture they make on weekdays is to comment on the country and care about national affairs. Dressing himself up as a saint and commenting on others, isn't this exactly the kind of person Zheng Xunrui commented.

The strange thing is that Chen Zhenhui and others did not defend themselves, and did not show up at all for a while.

This situation is very beneficial to Zheng Xunrui, among the readers, many people began to tend to Zheng Xunrui, they have seriously thought and reflected, that Donglin Academy does have empty words, and Zheng Xunrui put forward the empty talk of the country, hard work to prosper the country, become a lot of scholars believe in and worship the truth.

However, at this moment, Zheng Xunrui has no time to pay attention to the great changes in Nanjing and Suzhou, and his eyes are focused on food.

The famine in the north needs a lot of food, this is not something Zheng Xunrui needs to worry about, naturally there is the imperial court to care, but the impending famine in the south and some places in the south, Zheng Xunrui can not ignore it, and after the famine comes, he can stabilize the situation to the greatest extent and reassure the people, which will also help to increase and enhance personal prestige in an all-round way.

The most important material to solve the famine is food.

There are a lot of businessmen in the south, there are a lot of grain stocks at home, and the things that are strange in Tun are commonplace here, once there is any wind and grass, the price of grain will rise sharply, and even not sell it for the time being, as for the life and death of the common people, it is not for scholars and businessmen to consider.

This is the most hated habit, and it certainly needs to be changed, but it doesn't happen overnight.

What Zheng Xunrui needs to do now is to let Hongmen come forward and buy a large amount of food, as for the silver taels that need to be consumed, he is not worried, Hongmen Qianzhuang is a huge backing.

"Mr. Xu, Jin Hong, Li Yan, I have decided, Hongmen will buy two million stone grain within a month, this task must be completed, without the slightest delay, that is, it will be completed within a month in March, and the purchased grain will be stored in Moling Town, guarded by Zheng Jiajun, and all the warehouses in Moling Town will be used to hold grain."

Two million stone of grain, according to today's price, is close to eight million taels of silver, which is not a small amount, Zheng Xunrui suddenly asked to buy so much grain at this time, is it ready to relieve the people in the north.

Xu Wanghua was a little incomprehensible.

"My lord, now it is the spring famine gathering, buy two million stone grain in a month, this is not a particularly difficult thing in Nanzhili, but it is very difficult to complete, Hongmen has not yet fully controlled the merchants in the south, and so much grain needs a lot of places to store, the spring in the south is rainy, and the storage of grain is very difficult, if you buy so much grain rashly, will it be a waste."

Zheng Jinhong also nodded, buying two million stones of grain, it costs a lot of silver, this is not a silver that can be earned back casually, besides, Zheng Jiajun's current storage of grain is enough, Shaanxi, Penglai and Fuzhou and other places have also transported enough grain, it should not be bad food.

Xu Wanghua and Zheng Jinhong mean that they actually want to know what Zheng Xunrui is doing with so much food, according to the population, two million stone of grain is enough to relieve almost all the people in Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces.

Zheng Xunrui is not easy to explain, this is his grasp of history, it is impossible to say it in advance, although his crossing has changed history, but it cannot change the climate, and disasters in the north and south are still frequent.

"I know what you think, but the matter of buying grain, I have already decided, as for these grains, they must have a role, one thing you can rest assured, these grains will not be transported to the north, I am not so merciful, the famine in the north should be the responsibility of the emperor and the court, I will not interfere."

Zheng Xunrui said these words, Xu Wanghua, Zheng Jinhong and Li Yan and others were much more relieved, in fact, to restore Caoyun, they have some opinions, if it weren't for Zheng Xunrui as the governor of Caoyun for several years, transporting a large amount of grain to the capital and the north, several disasters in a row, I don't know what the situation in the north will be, now I think about calculating people, I don't care about anything, while calculating and asking others to do things, fortunately, Zheng Xunrui took care of the overall situation, and changed to someone else, and would have blocked Caoyun a long time ago.

"Jinhong, the matter of purchasing grain, you help coordinate it, just with the strength of Hongmen, I am afraid that it will be difficult, when necessary, some measures can be taken, the scholars and businessmen in the south, what they think of is money, that is, their own interests, and nothing else will be taken care of, their such concepts are also connived at by the Donglin Party, and we will correct these views in the next step, and use different ordinary means to correct such views and understandings."

"Where we should be strong, we must show our means, and we must show the courage we had when we cleaned up the Cao Gang in Huai'an, so that the businessmen in the south know the power of Hongmen, and also pave the way for doing more things in the future."

Yingtianfu, Suzhou Mansion, Changzhou Mansion, Songjiang Mansion and other places suddenly began to get busy, including Hangzhou Mansion in Zhejiang and other places, Hongmen began to buy food on a large scale in these places, this action is surprising, but Hongmen is famous in Nanzhili, everyone knows who is behind Hongmen, so most of the businessmen are cooperative, and Hongmen is to buy grain according to the market price, there is no forced buying and selling, of course, there are also businessmen who are unwilling to sell grain, continue to dream of the Tun settlement, But this part of the merchants, soon tasted bad, their shops encountered a lot of harassment, they did not get protection in business, and even some businessmen were on the verge of family breakdown, some businessmen did not believe in evil, went to the government to report the case to the official, but unfortunately it was all over, and even some local officials did not ask at all, which also made more businessmen understand that Hongmen was prepared.

Zheng Xunrui's attention was also focused on the matter of grain purchase, after all, two million stone of grain was not a small amount, and it took energy to buy.

The spring class of Donglin Academy started on time on the first day of March, and Zheng Xunrui did not pay special attention to it, but Xu Wanghua and Li Yan paid close attention to the situation of the spring class, and the Investigation Department also devoted part of its energy to the spring class.

The process of purchasing grain in Hongmen was basically smooth, and the merchants in the south knew that Hongmen was powerful, so they did not dare to offer high prices, and the price of grain per stone was basically maintained between three taels and five cents to four taels of silver, which was also a normal price. (To be continued......)