Qiming 1158

Chapter 1201 Rice disturbance

Judging from the current situation in the Sichuan-Shu area, the local land merger situation in Sichuan-Shu is also quite bad.

Large landowners occupied most of the fertile land, while a large number of landless peasants were forced to enter towns to make a living.

In any dynasty, this is also the rhythm of major events, but the Song Dynasty is different, the commodity economy far exceeding the scale of the previous dynasties gave this group of landless farmers a chance to survive.

In Sichuan and Shu, the large-scale and prosperous silk weaving and handicraft industry also needs a large number of people as laborers, so there is still a place for landless farmers.

They earned wages by doing manual work, and then bought grain from the grain shops set up by the landowners to support themselves, becoming early proletarians and workers.

Their survival depended on commercial activities, and the commerce of the Southern Song Dynasty itself was very fragile, so when this economic model, which was extremely dependent on external exports, was hit by the economic blockade, the bad effects suppressed by the false prosperity broke out.

Business can no longer continue, there is no money to pay wages, landless peasants can't find anything to do in towns, and they can't return to their land. Without income, they will starve. When they are hungry, they can do anything bad.

Petty theft can only be done by people with conscience. Those who were originally wild are now semi-open robbers.

From May of the sixth year of Hongwu to July of the sixth year of Hongwu, in three months, there were 160 thefts, 78 robberies, 93 stabbings and robberies in Chengdu alone. 69 times, resulting in a total of 21 fatalities.

The Chengdu government has been very troubled by this, and the officials have been scrambling to arrest the guy who wounded people with a knife, but for a larger number of petty theft and robbery, there is nothing they can do.

The public security environment in Chengdu has deteriorated rapidly, and public grievances are boiling.

And that's not the worst case.

Along with the large-scale closures and closures of urban industries and commerce and the large-scale unemployment of the industrial and commercial population, vital food prices began to rise quietly.

The most important thing in troubled times is not money, but food.

When the situation is chaotic, people begin to stockpile grain on a large scale, and grain merchants will quickly find the opportunity to make a fortune, and immediately start raising grain prices, hyping up the food crisis, and taking the opportunity to accumulate wealth on a large scale.

They don't care about the country's financial crisis, they just want money.

If you don't make money in times of crisis, when will you make money?
Therefore, from May of the sixth year of Hongwu to the beginning of June of the sixth year of Hongwu, the price of food in Chengdu rose by one third, the people complained, the unemployed urban citizens were angry, and there were many cases of surrounding the rice shop to denounce the grain merchants. very serious.

The people angrily denounced the grain merchants as having no conscience and hoarding them, knowing that making money does not know life.

The grain merchant was furious and sneered, saying that he liked to buy it or not. If he had the ability, he would come in and grab it. If he came, he would report to the officials to arrest one, so that these scumbags would have no good fruit to eat!

The opposing emotions between the two sides continue to accumulate and strengthen.

During this period, no official figures came out to help, and the price of food rose again and again. By the end of June, the price of food had doubled compared to April.

The grain merchants made a lot of money, and the unemployed civilians used up almost all their savings to eat a bite of food.

So, on the third day of July in the sixth year of Hongwu, after the price of food in Chengdu rose again, the first person to starve to death appeared in Chengdu.

By the sixth day of July, more than 20 people had starved to death.

On the eighth day of the seventh lunar month, a family of six hanged themselves in desperation.

On the tenth day of July, more than 100 people who were about to starve to death knelt in front of the largest grain shop in Chengdu and begged them to give them some food. They were violently driven away by the government servants called by the grain merchant, and they beat them with wooden sticks. Thirteen people were killed on the spot. The scene was chaotic.

The patience of the unemployed has reached its limit.

On July 500, a crowd of more than [-] people stormed the rice store.

Rice riots appeared in Chengdu.

On the day of the Mi riot, Xu Tong and the comrades from the Sichuan branch had just arrived in Chengdu for a week. They were sorting out the internal relations of the Chengdu court through the Chengdu relationship network of the Tianwang Army, and studying the components and behavior of the Chengdu court. .

A month before that, they had already arrived in Chuanshu, and they were connected with the secret agents of the Chuanshu Tianwang Army, located in Linjiang County, Zhongzhou.

The organization of the Sichuan-Shu Skynet Army is the Skynet Army Seventh Action Group, headed by Xu Wu.

Their development in Sichuan and Shu area is good.

The Seventh Action Group was organized by a group of key members from the Second Action Group according to the instructions of the Skynet Army Headquarters.

According to the strategy that Su Changsheng had set for them, at first, they relied on the abundant funds provided by the organization to recruit people to do the shipping business. Later, when the staff expanded, they began to send money and benefits to the local government, using the money to clear the way, and using the government's pull to help gradually. Monopolize the local shipping business.

Afterwards, they used the money earned from the monopoly business to buy large tracts of territory in Chungju, and secretly took in many homeless people who had no land to cultivate the land.

In this way, while selling food to make money, feeding these landless refugees, and selecting excellent and qualified people, training them as intelligence personnel, so as to expand the strength of the Skynet Army branch in Sichuan and Shu.

When Xu Tong and the Chuan-Shu branch entered Chuan-Shu, Xu Wu, the leader of the Seventh Action Group, directly used the shipping force to transport them all the way to a safe area in Linjiang County, and provided them with important help.

Including the area, quantity, generals, army quality, names, family background, personal quality and so on of the Song army garrisoned in Sichuan and Shu area.

Basically, he knew everything Xu Tong wanted to know, and Xu Tong also learned that among the Chengdu court, two-thirds of the prefectures and counties in the Sichuan and Sichuan areas have regular eyeliners from the Seventh Action Group. provide them with information.

To put it simply, Xu Tong and others want to carry out operations in the Sichuan-Shu area, whether military or political, two-thirds of the entire map has been opened, and all of them are the essence of Sichuan-Shu area.

Xu Tong was very happy, and even wanted to marry Xu Wu on the spot as brothers. Anyway, both of them were surnamed Xu, and they were both given names, which sounded like brothers.

After talking with Xu Wu, Xu Tong had a general understanding of what happened in the Chuan-Shu area at this stage of his arrival in Chuan-Shu.

Then Xu Tong decided to go to Chengdu to see what the situation is in Chengdu. If Chengdu is in chaos because of this economic crisis, then the chaos in Sichuan and Sichuan will be imminent.

After some rest and preparations, Xu Tong and others went to Chengdu to observe, and along the way, they continued to investigate some social conditions in Sichuan and Sichuan. Seven days after they arrived in Chengdu and checked into a hotel specially prepared for businessmen, Mi riot broke out.

The unfortunate Chengdu court was still thinking about how to enrich the country and strengthen its army against the military invasion of Ming and Jiangnan, but an internal crisis had broken out.

In the face of an internal crisis in which the staff of the Chengdu court basically did not have any preparations, the response of the Chengdu court was quite unsuccessful.

(End of this chapter)