My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 624 The Unique Sense of Crisis in China

Some might say: With grain being state-run, how could ordinary people not feel anything?
Stable grain prices have greatly guaranteed the survival of ordinary people and significantly improved their lives. How could they not feel it?

For example, it's not hard to see that this statement is not exaggerated in the slightest.

—You are a farmer.

Your grandfather was from Guanzhong. He was granted 100 mu of land and a farmhouse by Emperor Gaozu of Taizu, located in the Weibei region.

By your generation, the 100 mu of land is still intact and can steadily contribute about 350 shi of grain output every year.

After deducting the agricultural tax of a dozen or so shi (a unit of dry measure), plus the poll tax with a total value of no more than ten shi of grain, you would still have more than three hundred shi of grain left after the autumn harvest each year.

The autumn harvest is when grain prices are at their lowest.
If you have more than 300 shi of grain, and you keep more than 100 shi for the winter, and sell the remaining 200 shi, the money you get will only buy you 100 shi of grain the following spring, or even less.

In other words, half of the wealth you created through hard work was snatched away by grain merchants with just a flick of their fingers.

But this is a debt you've always cared too much about.

—Because after the autumn harvest, you can sell your two hundred bushels of grain for six thousand coins at a price of about thirty coins per bushel.

Although after the start of spring, the price of grain will rise sharply to around fifty coins, and slowly rise all the way to around sixty coins before the autumn harvest;

But at least this winter, you have more than a hundred bushels of grain left over, and you still have six thousand coins in your hand.

As spring arrived, the six thousand coins were taken out in hundreds or tens of coins at a time, gradually being consumed until they were all gone before the autumn harvest.

You don't really care about the price at which you sold your grain last autumn or the price at which you bought it this spring, summer and autumn.

Because it's always been this price.

After the autumn harvest, the land is filled with the grain harvested by farmers. As things are scarce, they are naturally not worth much.

From the beginning of spring until the autumn harvest, grain becomes increasingly scarce and expensive.

Most importantly: everyone has gone through this.

—After the autumn harvest, it wasn't just your family that sold grain for thirty coins; every farmer did the same.

After the spring, it wasn't just your family that bought grain to eat at a price of fifty or sixty coins per shi (a unit of dry measure).

Everyone does it this way, so naturally no one thinks it's a big deal.

Life can still go on.

The harvest of over 300 shi (a unit of dry measure) was enough to eat over 100 shi in the winter, and 200 shi were sold. After the buying and selling, the amount shrank to 100 shi, but it was still barely enough to eat until the autumn harvest.

Although, if the amount of 100 shi had not been reduced, there would have been a surplus of 100 shi of grain in that year.
But no way.

Who told you, an old farmer, to be incapable of building granaries and storing grain?

This is the fate of all old farmers;
If you cultivate the land and grow grain, enough to eat for a year, that's already very good.

How could I dare to hope for a surplus?

From this perspective, before Liu Rong implemented state-run grain production and achieved a state monopoly in the grain market, farmers at the grassroots level were actually used to fluctuations in grain prices.

The common people have long been accustomed to selling their grain for about thirty coins after the autumn harvest, and then buying it back to eat the following year for about fifty coins.

As long as this range is maintained—as long as the price of grain doesn't fall below thirty coins after the autumn harvest, and doesn't rise to seventy or eighty coins from the beginning of spring until the following autumn harvest—the common people will simply accept their fate.

In addition, fluctuations in grain production, while affecting market supply and demand, also keep people's livelihoods in a delicate balance.

—The harvest was normal, about 300 shi (a unit of dry measure), and the price of grain was normal, about 30 qian (another unit of dry measure), so the common people earned about 9,000 qian a year;

—A bumper harvest, about four hundred bushels, but the low price of grain hurt the farmers, and the price of grain dropped to more than twenty coins, but the people still made nine thousand coins.

—In a poor year, there were only two hundred bushels of grain. The high price of grain harmed the farmers. The price of grain rose to more than forty coins, but the common people still earned nine thousand coins.

It's as if no matter the harvest, the grain grown by the people is held firmly by an invisible hand at the line of 'ninety coins per mu'.

The only difference is that in years of bumper harvest, grain is cheap to sell and buy, making life easier.
In ordinary years, the selling price is fair, but it's not cheap to buy and eat, so life is a little tight.
In years of scarcity, prices are high, and buying food is extremely expensive, inevitably leading to hunger.

From God's perspective, it's not hard to see that the impact of grain prices on the lives of farmers at the bottom of society is actually very obvious and direct.

If grain prices are too high, people will go hungry.
Low grain prices mean that people will only experience less hunger, but they will not be able to translate a bumper harvest into a bountiful harvest in their pockets.

This leads to the conclusion that the price of grain—especially the purchase price after the autumn harvest—is directly related to the livelihood of people at the bottom of society.

At present, with the fixed purchase price of 26 coins per shi and the retail price of 30 coins per shi, no matter how much the common people lose, they can't really lose much.

The only factor affecting whether people went hungry was whether there was a good harvest.

Harvesting one more bushel of grain means selling it for twenty-six more coins;
If we collect one less bushel of millet, that means we will collect twenty-six less large coins.

More work, more pay; or, more grain, more pay.

Conversely, if the price difference between the two remains at the previous purchase price of around thirty coins and the retail price of around fifty coins, then no matter how hard the people work to farm, they will not be able to make a good living by farming.

Once you do the math, everything becomes clear.

—In the past, your 100 mu of land in Weibei produced 350 shi of grain per year, and after deducting taxes, you still had more than 300 shi left.
If we keep more than 100 shi for the winter and sell 200 shi, at 30 coins per shi, we can make 6,000 coins.

When spring came next year, the winter food was gone, and the six thousand coins could only buy a little over one hundred bushels of grain.

They ate over a hundred bushels of grain in one winter. In spring, summer, and the half of autumn before the harvest, they inevitably had to drink more thin soup and eat less thick soup.

Furthermore, the six thousand coins earned from selling grain were all used to buy food, and other household expenses were naturally avoided as much as possible.

clothing?

Three more years passed, marked by patching and mending.
Oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar?

Avoid eating it if possible, and if you really can't, use it as little as possible.

The same situation would have been completely different if Liu Rong had been in charge of the grain and rice business.

It's still the same 100 mu of land in Weibei, still the same 300 shi of produce, still the same 100 shi to keep for winter, and the same 200 shi to sell.

According to the fixed purchase price of 26 coins per shi (a unit of dry measure) from the Imperial Treasury, you sold these 200 shi of grain for 5,200 coins.

It's 800 coins less than the previous 6,000 coins; but the good news is: these 5,200 coins are enough for you to buy more than 170 shi of grain from the Imperial Treasury after the spring of next year.

Two hundred shi, only reduced to more than one hundred and seventy shi, instead of the previous one hundred and twenty shi;

With an extra fifty bushels of grain, there's no doubt that we won't go hungry anymore.

Every few days, we can have a thick meal, or even grit our teeth and buy a piece of cloth or make new clothes for our wives and children every few years. That's something to look forward to.

Or perhaps they still eat sparingly, opting for thinner foods, while still using oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar normally.

They even indulge in a meal of meat during holidays and festivals!
With such a significant change in quality of life, how could ordinary people not feel it?
The improvement in living standards directly brought about by the state monopoly on grain—the extra fifty or sixty bushels of grain—was something that ordinary people could not feel.

The answer is: cognition.

For ordinary people, many things don't require overly complicated explanations.

They cannot understand, and naturally cannot accept, the complex internal and external factors involved.

Especially for the people at the bottom of society in this era, whose illiteracy rate is nearly 100% and who are still extremely ignorant, the reasons are too complicated and may even seem unreal.

It's like farming.

If you say that a year of bumper harvest is due to favorable weather conditions, abundant rainfall, and helpful weather, the old farmer might nod with a smile.
But it will inevitably fit the saying: Heaven is merciful, and the harvest is good.

Conversely, if there is a severe crop failure in a certain year, you might say it's due to unfavorable weather conditions, with both floods and droughts, and either strong winds or heavy rains.

The old farmer would shake his head and sigh, saying, "Heaven won't give us a way to survive..."

The same principle applies to grain prices.

These ignorant people cannot understand the relationship between market supply and demand, nor can they understand why food prices decrease during bumper harvests and rise during severe crop failures.
For them, this is just a phenomenon, an objective reality.

In other words, if there is a bumper harvest, grain merchants will try to drive down prices.
If there is a severe crop failure, grain merchants will drive up grain prices, making it unaffordable for ordinary people to afford rice.

As for why grain merchants do this, and what influences the grain purchase price and retail price they set, they neither understand nor are interested in it.

All they can do at the last minute is pray: that grain merchants will offer higher prices after this autumn harvest, and that grain will be cheaper in the market next spring.

Their prayers were answered, but they had no time to celebrate that their prayers had been answered; they were just barely making ends meet.
If their prayers don't come true, they don't have time to feel frustrated about it; they can only rush to make amends.

They might eat tree bark, eat soil, or sell their fields, land, and even their children.

Once you understand these points, it becomes clear how Liu Rong's state-run grain system perceived its image and status among the common people, or rather, how the people actually felt about it.

—In earlier years, the purchase price and retail price of grain fluctuated between thirty and fifty coins. Occasionally, there were fluctuations, but the common people were basically unaware of them.
In years of major disasters, when grain prices soar uncontrollably, ordinary people simply attribute it to bad luck or simply being unlucky.

After the state monopoly on grain, the purchase price and retail price of grain were fixed at 26 and 30 coins respectively, and never fluctuated!

The general public remains unaffected.

As for the fifty extra bushels of grain each year, the significantly more money in their pockets, and the more oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar they could eat, they attributed it all to divine intervention, the legacy of Emperor Taizong, or the so-called "Reign of Wen and Jing".

perhaps;

Perhaps there is such a generation.

During their childhood, they experienced the tragedy of the time when rice in Guanzhong cost 8,000 coins per shi during the reign of Emperor Taizu Gao, and people resorted to cannibalism.
During my teenage years, I witnessed the long-term decline in grain prices and the unpredictable fluctuations during the reign of Empress Lü.
As adults, they personally experienced the historical moment during the reigns of Emperor Taizong and Emperor Xiaojing, when grain prices were gradually suppressed to below sixty coins and remained stable for a long period.

In his twilight years, Emperor Liu Rong used the "state-run grain system" to completely fix the price of grain at less than thirty coins per shi.

Perhaps, they will only realize this belatedly when their lives are about to come to an end;

Then say something like: Huh?
its not right?
During the reigns of Empress Lü and Emperor Taizong, even when grain prices were stable, they would inevitably experience a surge every ten or eight years.
How come the price of grain didn't change at all during Emperor Liu Rong's decades-long reign?

hiss~
That year, the notice posted outside the county government office mentioned something about government-run grain and rice;
So, it was because of that thing that grain prices were completely stabilized?

Ok……

In this light, Emperor Liu Rong's benevolence was comparable to that of Emperor Taizong Xiaowen!

It's a pity I'm so foolish; I only understood the meaning of this thirty coins per shi of grain when I had one foot in the grave...

This is a true depiction of the lives of most ordinary people in ancient China's feudal era.

—Whenever something unexpected happens, they often don't have the time, energy, or time to summarize their experiences or analyze 'why this happened' or 'what caused this to happen'.

All they can do is cope.

If you can handle it, you'll survive this ordeal and, in a daze, move on to the next one.
If you can't handle it, then you'll fall before this calamity, your family will be destroyed, and your descendants will be cut off.

Later generations often joked that all the descendants of later generations had ancestors who were once wealthy.
In any family that has been able to pass down its lineage to future generations, none of its ancestors were ordinary people.

Because most ordinary people don't survive to the next generation or the new era; they are ruthlessly crushed by the relentless wheels of time.

For future generations, this is a joke.

But for the ordinary people at the bottom of society in this era, this is the most realistic portrayal of reality.

—For a farmer, passing on the family line is the only meaningful thing you can do.

Even this one is still not easy.

You have to dedicate your entire life, you have to fight your entire life, to have any chance of accomplishing this mission in your generation.

But you still can't guarantee that your descendants will be able to complete the mission from generation to generation.

Therefore, the Chinese nation naturally has a strong sense of gratitude for leaving a legacy for future generations.

Only through the accumulation of generations can a family and bloodline be maintained, and not be crushed by the rolling wheels of history.

As the saying goes: Aim high and you'll get average; aim average and you'll get low.

Leaving behind one's own accumulated wealth for future generations is a unique Chinese strategy of "seeking the highest and achieving the middle."

—Seeking advancement naturally means seeking further progress for one's descendants, building upon the foundations left behind, and passing them down from generation to generation;

If one gets a good fortune, it means one's own accumulated wealth. Even if it cannot help the family advance further, or even if it cannot be maintained, at most one will fall from a 'rich man' to a 'farmer'.
Instead of falling directly from being a farmer to someone with no descendants and no trace, this person could not be found.

(End of this chapter)