Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 199: No grain in the government warehouse? A kind-hearted person released grain!
In an instant, the people who were crowding in front of the granary to buy grain let out earth-shaking cheers.

"Thank you, Your Highness Taisun!"

"Your Highness is still the best!"

"No need to limit purchases, so I have to buy 100 kilograms today."

"It seems that the imperial court is not short of food. Who is spreading rumors that food prices are going to rise?"

"Since there is no shortage of food, why did Suzhou Prefecture impose purchase restrictions before?"

"They are just trying to create panic, right?"

"Yes, that's for sure. They are against His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and are deliberately spreading rumors."

"Never mind. It won't go wrong to buy some."

"Since there is no shortage of food, I am too lazy to queue up and will come back to buy it tomorrow."

……

The people were talking about it, and there were various opinions.

Old Zhu's expression suddenly changed, and he asked, "Is there enough food in the treasury right now?"

Ji Yuan smiled bitterly and said, "Master, I don't know this either. Logically speaking, there should be food in the treasury. As long as no one deliberately buys the food back and stores it in large quantities, our Ming Dynasty will not be short of food."

Old Zhu's face became even gloomier.

Under normal circumstances there would be no food shortage, but if someone deliberately rushes to buy and hoard food, things would be different.

Limiting each person to purchase ten kilograms of rice per day can at least ensure supply and prevent people from buying and hoarding in large quantities.

If there are no restrictions, the situation will be even worse.

Zhu Yunhuan's order could certainly stabilize people's hearts temporarily and stop the people from panicking, but if the grain in the national treasury was sold out as a result, the problem would become even more troublesome.

Jiang Li said, "In the past, glutinous rice mortar was used to build the city wall. Since His Royal Highness the Crown Prince invented cement, glutinous rice mortar has no longer been used. This has saved a lot of food. The glutinous rice originally intended for making glutinous rice mortar in the national treasury can be sold to the people, so there will be no shortage of food."

Yes.

Our grandson is extremely smart and invented cement.

This item alone can help the court save countless amounts of food.

That is to say, there should be some surplus of food nowadays.

Old Zhu finally felt a little relieved.

Because the supply was open, many people stopped rushing to buy and gradually dispersed.

When Lao Zhu and his companions came to the front, they saw a minor official in official uniform and asked, "Sir, is there enough food in the granary?"

The clerk turned around and looked Old Zhu up and down, and said coldly: "Why are you asking about these things? If you want to buy grain, buy it quickly. If you don't want to buy it, just go away and don't get in the way here."

Yoshigaki stepped forward quickly, stuffed some banknotes into the clerk's sleeve, and said with a smile, "Please give me some convenience, sir."

The clerk felt hard in his sleeve, feeling the thickness of the money, and immediately his expression changed into a smile.

He lowered his voice and said, "To be honest, there is not much food left in the government warehouse."

"Otherwise, why did the prefect issue a notice to restrict the purchase of grain?"

"Now His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has ordered that purchase restrictions not be allowed."

"The grain in this granary will be sold out within three to five days."

"If you want to buy grain, don't hesitate. Once the grain in the government warehouse is sold out, the price of grain will definitely go through the roof."

"I see you are businessmen too. If you want to get rich, buy now. If you miss this opportunity, you will never see this shop again."

Old Zhu was surprised and said quickly, "Just now I saw that the people didn't buy much food. After the purchase restrictions were lifted, many people went home and stopped buying."

The petty official laughed at him and said, "What do these ignorant people know?"

"After the purchase restrictions were lifted, fewer people bought grain, but the big farmers bought a lot!"

"Those wealthy merchants can buy hundreds of thousands of kilograms at a time."

"How can it be compared with what they buy by the pound?"

Old Zhu was surprised and asked, "Why did they buy so much food? There are so many people in the family. Can they eat it all?"

The clerk laughed and said, "Your question is very strange. Who said they bought it to feed their family members?"

"Only after we buy out all the grain in the general's warehouse can we raise the price of grain."

"By then, the people who just bought grain by the dozen will have to pay ten or even a hundred times the price to buy grain from them."

As he was talking, a fat and big-eared businessman came over and shouted, "Come on, buy me 200,000 kilograms of rice."

Old Zhu walked over and asked, "Why did you buy so much rice?"

The fat merchant said without even raising his head, "We are businessmen, so we naturally buy low and sell high to make a profit. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has lifted the purchase limit, so we will buy all the grain in the granary."

"Yes!" Soon another businessman came over and shouted, "I'll buy 200,000 kilograms too! Hahaha! I just went to Daming Bank to borrow money. This time I have enough capital. I must buy all the grain in the granary and make a fortune."

"Me too, I went to Daming Bank to borrow money." The third businessman came over. He seemed to know the two previous ones. He nodded and greeted them as soon as they met:
"Does the government think we have no capital? But we are all wealthy people. As long as we pledge our houses and farms to the Ming Bank, we can get as much money as they want."

"Yeah! Anyway, it's a guaranteed profit! Hahaha!"

"Hahaha!"

"Hahaha!"

Several people laughed triumphantly.

Beside him, the anger on Lao Zhu's face was almost uncontrollable.

He waved his sleeves and returned to the carriage.

"How is Hu'er doing this?" Old Zhu said angrily, "He just lets those profiteers buy out the national treasury and granary? He also doesn't allow local governments to limit purchases. What is he trying to do?"

Jiang Li said in a deep voice: "His Royal Highness the Crown Prince must be afraid of causing greater panic, so he ordered no purchase restrictions to stabilize people's hearts."

"But these profiteers are all local tyrants, and they are well-informed."

"The government office is full of their people."

“It’s hard to hide from them how much grain is in the granary.”

"It's impossible to argue with these people."

Old Zhu slammed his palm hard on the carriage seat and said, "Officials and businessmen are colluding with each other. How did our Ming Dynasty become like this?"

He was extremely angry, his face was pale and blue, and he angrily said: "Also, what's wrong with Hu'er's Daming Bank? At this time, how can they lend money to those profiteers to buy grain? Isn't this nonsense?"

Yoshigaki whispered, "The Daming Bank only takes care of deposits and loans. I'm afraid they don't care what those people do with the money." Old Zhu stood up suddenly and said, "No, we can't continue like this."

"If we don't stop it, there will be chaos all over the world."

"Let's go to the Suzhou prefectural government office and ask them to stop the granary from selling grain."

"Also, take my order and mobilize the nearby garrisons. We will capture all those profiteers who hoarded grain and kill them one by one."

Jiang Li knelt down and said, "I accept your order."

Since Zhu Yuanzhang intended to reveal his identity, he would of course just call himself "minister".

After a pause, he continued, "Your Majesty, judging from the situation, I'm afraid it's not just Suzhou, the situation should be the same all over the country. We must immediately send someone to the court to convey the order and have local governments take action."

Old Zhu did not answer immediately, his face was uncertain. After a while, he sat down with a depressed look.

"It's too late!" he murmured, "Even if we send people to all parts of the country now, it's still too late."

"Besides, even if the decree is issued, local governments will not do their job sincerely."

"You have seen it all along the way."

"Those clerks are in cahoots with the corrupt businessmen."

"Even if the imperial court issues an order, what effect will it have?"

“I’m afraid it will cause even greater unrest.”

"We are in Suzhou, and we can suppress the government officials and gentry here, but we don't have hundreds of clones, and we can't be in charge of government offices all over the country at the same time."

He looked gloomy and listless.

The thought that this incident might cause unrest and cause countless people to starve to death due to lack of food, and that the court would be unable to provide disaster relief because its official granaries were empty, made people feel heartbroken.

Everything was apparently fine before, how did it suddenly become like this?

"Your Majesty, don't worry too much." Yoshigaki consoled him, "How smart is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince?"

"Yao Guangxiao's Investigation Department is no pushover. The people in the Investigation Department should have known about the scenes we saw along the way."

"Since His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has sent an order to the government to open the government warehouses and release the grain, there must be a way to deal with it."

Old Zhu's eyes suddenly lit up.

Makes sense.

My grandson has always been very careful in his actions.

Now that the order has been passed on, there must be a way.

It must be so.

Old Zhu regained his spirits and said, "Then let's not go to Suzhou Prefecture Government Office for now. Let's observe for a few days first."

That night, Lao Zhu and others stayed in a restaurant near the granary so that they could observe the situation in the next few days.

The next day, there was still a steady stream of people coming to the granary to buy grain.

Inside the restaurant, among the people who came to drink, word began to spread that the government's granary was about to be sold out.

On the third day, the crowds once again filled the square in front of the granary.

At noon, a clerk in the government warehouse suddenly came out and shouted, "Don't crowd, there is no grain left in the government warehouse! Everyone, go away."

The crowd below suddenly exploded.

"What's going on? I've been waiting in line for a whole day, and you tell me there's no food to sell?"

"That's right. His Royal Highness has already ordered that the warehouses be opened to release grain. Why don't you sell it?"

"My family is waiting to buy food to eat, but now there is no food to sell. What should I do?"

"I don't care. If they don't sell us grain today, we'll just rob the government warehouse."

"Yes! Selling food!"

“Selling food!”

“Selling food!”

……

The crowd was enraged, shouting loudly, and surged forward.

The clerk of the granary climbed up to the high platform and glanced coldly at the people below: "It's no use for you to make a fuss. There is not a single grain left in the government granary."

"Otherwise, you can just rush in and rob them. If you can snatch a grain of food, it will be considered a great achievement for you."

The crowd suddenly became quiet.

Everyone looked at each other, panic-stricken and at a loss as to what to do.

"This is how to do ah?"

Some people couldn't help crying.

"My family is all waiting for food to be cooked. How can we survive without food?"

"Don't cry. I heard that Mr. Wang opened his own granary to sell rice. Go and buy some."

"Mr. Wang's rice is ten times more expensive than the government's granary. Isn't that just robbing money?"

"In my opinion, this is worse than robbing people. What kind-hearted Mr. Wang? He is more like skinning the skin of a man. I would rather die of starvation than buy rice from him."

"What's the point of saying this now? Wait until you starve for a few days and then I'll see if you'll buy it!"

"There's no rice in the government warehouse! Even if it's ten times more expensive, we have to buy it."

"I can't afford it, so do I have to wait to starve to death?"

……

Old Zhu witnessed this scene, clenched his fists, and roared at Ji Yuan: "Didn't you say that Hu'er would have a way? Why didn't I see any movement?"

Yoshigaki was so frightened that he immediately knelt on the ground, trembling.

Zhu was furious and shouted, "Follow us to the Suzhou government office to mobilize troops to arrest people. I don't believe that our swords can kill Chen Youliang, Zhang Shicheng, the Yuan court's lackeys, and millions of elite soldiers, but we can't kill a few evil gentry and profiteers who hoard goods!"

Just as he finished speaking, at this moment, a shout suddenly came from the crowd: "Mr. Zhou has opened his warehouse to sell grain. The price is cheaper than the grain in the government warehouse. Everyone, go buy it!"

……

(End of this chapter)