When Xiao He was walking on Artemisia Street with a sad face, and Xiangyang Chengyan was analyzing the consequences of Liu Ying's 'ban on Jia Tun grain order', Liu Ying, who sent Xiao He and Yangchengyan away in Weiyang Palace, was also waiting for the arrival of his mother Lu Pheasant.

As in the past ten days, Liu Ying, who was about to get up and greet him, sat down, and Lu Pheasant sat next to Liu Ying and asked about Fang Cai.

"Some time ago, Ying'er Yan wanted to persuade Hou Bu to order Guanzhong to ban the business of Jia Tun grain and grain, and set up a grain market in the south of Chang'an to sell cheap grain from Shaofu and the people of Guanzhong."

"The Marquis has just entered the palace, but for this matter?"

Hearing this, Liu Ying only nodded with a smile and sighed with a little feeling.

The high price of grain in Guanzhong is not a new problem.

Whether it is the strange memory in Liu Ying's mind, the ups and downs of grain prices in the past few years in the Han family, or the years after Liu Ying became a puppet son of heaven in the previous life, grain prices have always been a major concern of the Chang'an court.

Combined with Liu Ying's memories of the past when he had not yet crossed over, as well as his impression after becoming a puppet son of heaven in his previous life, the word 'grain price' has always been the main content of court discussions and court discussions.

In Liu Ying's mind, the earliest memory of grain prices is that in the fifth year of the Han Dynasty, that is, in the year of the next war, Liu Ying was sent to Chang'an by Liu Bang, who was only the king of Han at the time.

Liu Ying clearly remembered that the grain price range in Guanzhong that year was 2,500 to 4,000 yuan per stone, and it was high before and after the autumn harvest and in spring and summer.

In the following six years of the Han Dynasty, the price of grain in Guanzhong experienced the first sharp rise in human traces since the Han Dynasty!

In the sixth year of the Han Dynasty, that is, Han Wangxin was about to jump back, and in the summer of that year when the first battle of Han-Hun Baideng was imminent, the price of grain in Guanzhong once rose to 8,000 yuan a stone!

Liu Ying did not know how much damage the grain price of 8,000 yuan and one stone had caused to the people at the bottom.

But there is one data that may be able to illustrate how the sudden surge in food prices will have a bad impact on the Han family and the world.

——In the spring of the fifth year of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang succeeded the Son of Heaven in Luoyang and established the Han Dynasty, and almost at the same time ordered: Anyone who walks out of the mountains and forests and registers with the government to register his household registration with the government will be awarded the title of a duke and a hundred acres of land!

Driven by the "Decree on the Granting of the Lords of the People's Fields", from the spring to the autumn of the fifth year of the Han Dynasty, in less than half a year, only 3,000 miles of Qinzhong ushered in a 'population eruption'.

Until now, it is still stored in the prime minister's internal history household registration file, and in that half a year, the household registration in Guanzhong has skyrocketed from 150,000 to nearly 600,000!

The registered population has skyrocketed from less than 800,000 to nearly 3 million!

But in the second year, that is, the sixth year of the Han Dynasty, it was also half a year, and it was also spring to summer, but the household registration and population of Guanzhong did not increase in the slightest!

- You must know that this year is the seventh year since Liu Bang promulgated the "Decree on the Granting of Fields to the People"!

And even now, there are still people in Guanzhong who continue to come down from the deep mountains and old forests to receive household registration and acres, so that the household registration and population of Guanzhong will grow at a rate of about 10% per year!

Then why in the sixth year of the Han Dynasty, the second year after the promulgation of the "Decree on the Granting of Fields to the People", the household registration and population of Guanzhong did not grow again?

Could it be that the high price of food makes those remnants of the former Qin and Warring States who hid in the deep mountains and forests to escape the war reluctant to go down the mountain?

The answer to this question has not been recorded in the archives of the Han Dynasty, and Liu Ying is also very sure that in the future, the history books of a certain Taishi Gong will not give too clear an answer to this question.

Because this answer is too cruel and too sad······

The fact is: in the second year of the promulgation of the "Decree on the Granting of Fields to the People", the news that 'you can get acres of land when you go down to the mountain to register your household registration' spread more widely in the sixth year of the Han Dynasty, and there were more new household registrations in Guanzhong than in the fifth year of the Han Dynasty!

But in that year, in the face of the sky-high price of grain of '8,000 yuan', there were countless peasants, from the beginning of selling children and daughters, to the later cannibalism of Yi sons, and finally, they fell to the point of starving to death······

As soon as he came down the mountain, the 'Xinmin' who received acres of land from the government didn't have time to adapt to his identity as a 'Han', and he found that he had poured all his wealth into his family, and he couldn't afford to buy grain for spring ploughing!

The people who went down the mountain earlier, or did not go up the mountain to take refuge themselves, looked at their hands without tears, the piles of grain that were sold for hundreds of stones in exchange, but now they can't buy back the copper coins of dozens of stones of grain.

Even the government, the court, and even Liu Bang, the Son of Heaven, in the face of such outrageously high grain prices, could only sacrifice the 'Han three baht' such economic measures as digging their own graves and destroying their foundations to alleviate the predicament of the central government's finances.

Since the sixth year of the Han Dynasty, the grain prices in Guanzhong have been boiling, the population of Guanzhong has plummeted, the number of households has decreased, the grain prices have not been reported, and a series of sequelae such as the practice of privately minting three-baht pod money have plunged the Han family into a decades-long predicament.

In order to heal the undesirable consequences of that sharp rise in food prices, the Han family tolerated the freak of 'three baht coins with a face value of half a tael', and existed in the Han family for eight years.

It was not until the death of Emperor Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty and the Empress Dowager Lu Pheasant personally issued an edict prohibiting the people from minting money privately, that the currency market of the Han Dynasty returned to the right track slightly.

As for the price of food, that's even more to say.

- Liu Ying still remembers: In her previous life, when she turned twenty-two years old, that is, in the nineteenth year of the Han Dynasty, the price of grain in Guanzhong still did not fall by a thousand dollars per stone!

On top of the original history, in order to reduce the price of grain in Guanzhong from 8,000 yuan per stone in the sixth year of the Han Dynasty to 60 yuan per stone in the first year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, it took nearly 100 years for the Han family.

And for most of this century, it was generally called by later historians: the rule of Wenjing······

"The queen mother may not know."

Pulling the heavy heart back from the blindness, and smiling at his mother Lu Pheasant, Liu Ying's face couldn't help but bring a little contemplation.

"In the autumn and September of last year, my son went to the lotus spoon because of the renovation of the Zhengguo Canal, and I didn't know how many farmers I saw along the way who were hungry and unclothed."

"To the lotus spoon, I can see the people of Weibei who have come to build the canal, and I often see the people who are more than 30 years old, but they are still skinny and have a vegetable!"

"——It must be known that the father and the emperor conferred the title of Mintianjue, and he is only six years old; All the people in Guanzhong have 100 acres of fertile land! ”

"I got this hundred acres of fertile land, and I was the pillar of a family, but the lack of grain and rice still made this generation hungry······"

Shaking his head sadly and sighing, he saw Liu Ying purse his lips slightly.

"Before, I didn't know the detailed reason, but when the Guanzhong water conservancy was in disrepair for many years, and the yield of the acres of land was reduced year after year, this made the people plough the fields, and the farmers did not have enough food."

"However, after more than ten days, and lying on the couch and meditating for a long time, I realized that the people in Guanzhong were not full of food, not because of insufficient food production."

As she spoke, Liu Ying's emotions also became a little excited.

"——100 acres of fertile land, 2 stones per mu, 200 stones of grain and rice; If you go to agricultural taxes and mouth taxes, there will be no less than 190 stones left! ”

"With this grain of 190 stones, a family of five is not enough to eat?"

"You must know that today, the soldiers of the two armies in the south and north have only thirty stones of food a year!"

"One hundred and ninety stones of grain and rice, when it can support two husbands and wives, parents and parents, five or six children and grandchildren, and there is more than that!"

Speaking of this, Liu Ying finally couldn't hold back the annoyance in her chest, clenched her hand tightly into a fist, and smashed it on her knee lightly.

"If it weren't for the past few years, the grain merchants in Guanzhong were evil and ate the blood of the people, and now in the court, why worry about the grain and grass of the emperor's army?"

"Why worry about the power of renovating the Zhengguo Canal and the money and grain for the construction of Chang'an City?!"

"Every time I think of this, I can't lift the three-foot sword and slaughter the grain merchant Mi Jia in the pass!!"

With a low roar full of anger, Liu Ying slammed the soft couch on his side with his fist again, and for a while, even his chest was a little undulating.

Seeing Liu Ying's posture like this, Lu Pheasant on the side chuckled, and secretly, he also nodded silently.

"It's rare to have such a thorough understanding of the things that are rich in food and the country."

With a smile on his face, he let out a compliment, and saw Lu Pheasant gently patting the back of Liu Ying's hand, and said with a little temptation: "But even so, Ying'er should not generalize everything." ”

"Ying'er needs to know that buying low and selling high, and making a profit is the foundation for businessmen to make a living."

"Whoever does not know this way will not be able to benefit."

"And the grain merchants in Guanzhong, although there are occasional misdeeds, but they also have the merit of 'reserves for the people'; even if the price of rice is a little expensive, it is not enough to say that 'the blood of the people is attached'······"

Wen Sheng soothed Liu Ying's faintly irritable mood, and saw that Lu Pheasant's face was slightly stagnant, and then lowered his head thoughtfully.

Only a moment later, I saw Lu Pheasant smile meaningfully, and stared at the depths of Liu Ying's gaze.

"Ying'er just said: Grain merchant evil?"

"Could it be that he is a profiteer in the world, only a kind of grain Jia?"

Hearing that the old lady suddenly asked such a question, Liu Ying only thought about it for a moment, and then muttered angrily: "The rest, I don't know." ”

"Ranliangjia, he should indeed be a traitor who intends to subvert the society and mess with my Han family!"

Seeing that Liu Ying had just calmed down a little emotionally, and was rekindled by a question of his own, Lu Pheasant was not in a hurry to be relieved, but raised his head with a smile.

"Oh?"

Looking at the words 'expand and talk' that were almost clearly written on the old lady's face, Liu Ying also had to temporarily suppress the anger in her heart, and after a little wording, she turned her head sideways.

"The Han family rules the world, and there are three of them."

"One said: filial piety; The second said: agriculture; Three said: Mausoleum. ”

"Filial piety, the first of a hundred goodness, is used by my Han family to lead the people to goodness."

"And the peasants, since the three emperors and the five emperors, are the foundation of the country and the people."

"Mausoleum, it is a city; It was the father's emperor who took the proposal of Fengchun Jun Lou Jing and moved the world's heroes into the customs, thinking that it was a strategy to strengthen the foundation and weaken the end. ”

"Filial piety, agriculture, and mausoleum are the three books of my Han family's governance; The three complement each other. ”

said this with a determined face, and Liu Ying's eyes also burst out with a little essence.

"Now, what the grain merchant has done has harmed all three!"

"——The grain merchant is evil Jia Tun grain Juqi, driving up the price of grain, and the first person to lose is the agricultural capital!"

"In this pass, after the summer season and the autumn harvest is imminent, the price of grain falls immediately; And in the spring and summer seasons, when the people are green and yellow, the price of grain rises again! ”

"In the long run, if the people lose their desire to farm because of the ups and downs of grain prices, the country of our Han Dynasty should be unstable!"

Hearing this, Lu Pheasant only nodded indifferently, and saw Liu Ying clear his throat slightly, and then continued: "The second loss is Lingben!" ”

"——The system of Lingyi is far away from Chang'an in the eastern part of the country, and the local rich and powerful households are too big to fall, and the county cannot be governed by 2,000 stones, so it is used to use the name of 'filial piety to guard the emperor's mausoleum', and it is forced to move to Guanzhong and weaken."

"However, in Guanzhong today, all the goods and grains are almost all for the Han Dynasty for seven years, and Xiao Xiangguo moved from the Kanto to Changling!"

"In the long run, the strong and weak roots of the Han family, the strong cadres and weak branches, the tomb system of the town and the strong and the good Qian, has not become the advance ladder of the Guandong Haoqiang to move to Guanzhong to suppress the people in Guanzhong?"

"In the future, when I hear the 'move to the tomb of the emperor and guard the soul', I am afraid that the eastern part of the country will be strong, and it will no longer be like a mourning test, and the crown will be celebrated, and the people will be closed with fish and meat!"

Hearing this, Lu Pheasant's face suddenly appeared a little different.

It is understandable that the fluctuation of food prices will affect agricultural production.

-- Grain prices fluctuate, and the high price of grain hurts the peasants, and the cheap grain hurts the peasants, which will naturally lead to a decline in the people's willingness to cultivate and a decrease in motivation.

This is also the consensus of the court today, and even the whole world.

And when Liu Ying said that 'the ups and downs of grain prices will not only harm the agricultural capital, but also destroy the people's customs, filial piety, and the Lingyi system', Lu Pheasant didn't take it too seriously.

It wasn't until Liu Ying said this second point that Lu Pheasant suddenly reacted: That's right!

Now in Guanzhong, those grain merchants who raise grain prices are all strong and powerful places that moved in from Kanto in the early years!

The original intention of the Lingyi system was to pull these thorns that the local officials could not govern to Guanzhong, and suppress them by the way, so as to consolidate the national capital and prevent the local forces from becoming too big.

But isn't the current situation just as Liu Ying said: the strong and powerful people who should have been suppressed in Guanzhong began to exploit the peasants in Guanzhong like a fish in water?

If this development continues, it will really take 180 years, and Liu Ying's guess may really become a reality!

——Hearing that his family was forcibly moved into Guanzhong, the local heroes were not afraid or disappointed, but happily said: I can finally change places, and I am still at the feet of the Son of Heaven, and I will go to the people of Guanzhong······

"Third, filial piety ······"

While thinking about it, Liu Ying was taking care of herself and expressed her third opinion.

"Those who are filial are filial to their parents, and their sisters and brothers are brothers; and filial piety, but only to provide grain, rice, and cloth. ”

"However, today, the people of Guanzhong are still hungry and have no clothes to cover their bodies, so how can they get their surplus wealth and practice filial piety?"

"In the long run, won't the people of Guanzhong run for their livelihood and neglect filial piety in vain?"

"In this way, filial piety will no longer exist, and the people of our Han family should no longer see the pure and honest style······"

After that, seeing that the old lady was only thoughtfully caught in thought, Liu Ying didn't stop and directly said her conclusion.

"Therefore, I think: for the eternal plan of my Han family, the grain merchant will be in Guanzhong, and even in the world!"

"The purchase of grain and rice is related to the three books of filial piety, agriculture and mausoleum of the Han family, and it is an indispensable weapon when soldiers and horses are mobilized!"

"Such a heavy weapon must not be paid into the hands of lowly businessmen and evil people!!"