Song Dynasty Cannon Fodder Counterattack Record

Chapter 254
Although there was a drought in the Great Song Dynasty this year, the situation was actually not as severe as the droughts after Zhao Zhen ascended the throne and before the Yuan Qingli was changed. Moreover, the drought areas were mainly concentrated in the north, and the further south they were, the less affected they were.

Li Buqi held the police department in his hand, and through the data collected from various places, he knew very well that Song Dynasty was structurally short of food this year.The reason why it is called a structural food shortage is that on the one hand, there is food in the south, but not in the north; on the other hand, the big landowners in the north own large tracts of land and can build some water conservancy projects, or the land is close to rivers, and the crops can be watered. The drought is not serious, so there is food in the family, but because the small landowners and self-cultivating farmers are all fragmented plots, they cannot dig ditches to divert water, so the drought is severe, and there is no food in the family.

When this kind of structural food shortage occurs, it is the time when grain merchants and big landowners take advantage of the opportunity to plunder.Their routine is very simple, that is, to join forces to hoard, and when the government releases food for disaster relief, they use the government's price to hoard the government's food at a low price, and when the government's food is exhausted, they will fry the price of the food to the sky. .At this time, the people had no choice but to sell their land or borrow usury to buy food at sky-high prices. Before the disaster subsided, the land and even the population of the people fell into the pockets of big landlords and usurers.

The big landlords and usurers did this, which seriously damaged the stability of the Northern Song Dynasty.Moreover, the families of big landlords often had people in the imperial court. Although they owned a lot of land, they could pay less tax by various means. Therefore, the tax revenue of the Song Dynasty continued to decrease.This has seriously undermined Li Buqi's plan to expand the territory, so Li Buqi must show them some color and warn them not to go too far.

But fighting these big landowners requires careful planning.These people are local snakes, and they have spokespersons in the court. If there is a mistake, it is not a simple matter of embarrassment, but may be bitten by these guys.Therefore, although Li Buqi had long wanted to do something, he has been holding back and waiting until everything is ready this year.

Now in Li Buqi’s hand, the Police Department’s Investigation Bureau has the grain, money, and land production data in various places. There are money houses, cotton cloth chambers of commerce, and maritime trade associations that provide millions of coins. Their tentacles extending to various places are also responsible for raising food. The Escort raises water and land transportation vehicles and guarantees them along the way. They are escorted by the police department's armed forces, Maitreya Sect secretly collects information and acts as a scapegoat, and economic experts like Mao Zhichun lead a team to coordinate. What is lacking is only storage facilities and places. Government cooperation.But when Li Buqi persuaded the emperor to use his own way to rescue the disaster, these problems were also solved.

The emperor decreed that all Fu'an banks under the control of Mao Zhichun's grain transportation vehicles and ships should issue special banners, and the local government should provide convenience for the storage, transportation and sales of these grains, and the vacant granaries of the government should be used by them.In this way, even if the official ships going south on the canal see grain transport ships with flags, they have to avoid them. Even if the local government does not sincerely provide convenience, they dare not make things difficult openly, not to mention Bao Heizi who sits in the police department to watch.

But even with such good conditions, Li Buqi did not dare to be careless, because this was an enemy of the big landlords all over the world.These big landowners see that their plundering tools have been abolished, so it's no wonder they don't fight you desperately.There are quite a few big landlords in the court, and they dare not oppose Dayi on the surface, but there is no problem in picking bones.Therefore, Li Buqi put the target of these grain distributions in Hebei first.Although Han Qi and Li Buqi in Hebei would not deal with it, the county magistrates are not as good as they are now. There are more officials from Qingyuan Academy there, and they can help a lot.

So with the continuous flow of grain from the south, it was transported into Cizhou and Xingzhou, Hebei.There is a big crocodile here—the Han family in Xiangzhou, and now Han Qi who came out of the Han family is serving as the deputy envoy of Hebei Economic Strategy to appease.

The Han family in Xiangzhou is also close to covering the sky with one hand in the local area. Most of the good land in Xiangzhou is under the name of the Han family and relatives. There is no land to buy in Xiangzhou, so they can only extend their hands to several nearby counties.Of course, the Han family is not the only big crocodile in this area, they are all waiting to take advantage of the food shortage to buy land, and even take advantage of the famine to drive the people directly from the land.But these big landlords suddenly found that they had one more competitor - Fu'an Bank.Fu'an Bank not only provides loans with low interest rates, but also sells rice grains at prices lower than market prices.

In the past, they had ways to deal with this kind of outsiders, but this time it was different. They were taken care of by local officials, guarded by the imperial army and the police.

It doesn't matter if there are magistrates and imperial guards to protect them, but now all landlords and powerful landlords who often read newspapers are afraid of the police department.As the saying goes, it is good that a strong dragon does not suppress a local snake, but the two subordinates in Liyang Junzhou and Tangzhou are also local snakes, right?Moreover, even the county magistrate dared to kill him, that was the most powerful type of local snake, wouldn't he be killed by the police department?The confiscation of the family property, the beheading of those directly involved in the incident, and the rest of the family being distributed to Leizhou and Salmonella Island will not be pardoned. It is chilling to think about it.

Although most of the big families in Hebei are officials in the court and have a strong background, if someone in the family commits a crime, it will also implicate those who are officials in the court.No one wants to confront the police department, and they all know that Li Buqi is not easy to deal with, so many people give up the idea of ​​causing trouble.

But this is not to say that these big landlords have nothing to do. The big families want money and money, and they want land and land.It's not easy to transport food these days. These bumpkins who have never seen the world think that they have a lot of money—even many officials in Beijing think so—but they have no idea how much capital Li Buqi has invested in this time.As Li Buqi expected, they began to join forces to buy food in Fu'an.

The grain in Fu'an was not so fast to transport. These landlords quickly bought up the first few batches of grain that arrived, but when they just raised the price of grain, another batch of grain arrived.They just bought batch by batch, but there was no end in sight.In the end, some people began to mortgage their land to Fu'an Bank to buy grain, and wanted to use Fu'an ammunition to kill Fu'an Bank. For example, the Han family in Xiangzhou had land.

But what everyone didn't expect was that the food was still coming in a steady stream.Now it is no longer a question of whether money can be obtained, but a question of where to put the food.Grain is not gold and silver, dig a hole to bury it and then dig it out.To store this thing, you need a warehouse, and you need to prevent insects, rats, fires, and mildew, which is troublesome.

Do you want to transport these hoarded grains to places with high grain prices in other places for sale?The government has issued an edict that due to the lack of food, the food here is not allowed to be shipped out, and the police are like wolfs and tigers guarding all traffic arteries, and they can't get out if they want to.

At this time, some people began to wake up, and a desperate counterattack followed. Every day, there were a lot of bullets to impeach Li Buqi and Bao Zheng.However, the emperor would only take a look at these bullets at most, and then he would not send them. What he prefers to read are the reports sent back by the servants sent to Cizhou and Xingzhou.

At the end of June, when it was reported that large households in Xingzhou, Cizhou, and Xiangzhou started to sell grain at a low price, the emperor called Li Buqi to ask: "Hebei's appeasement department here wants to lift the grain embargo in Xiangzhou, Cizhou, and Xingzhou." What do you think should be the answer to the memorandum of the fortune order?"

Li Buqi knew what was going on without looking.This time, the people of the Han family in Xiangzhou were also among the hoarders, and they took out at least 30 guan coins and a large amount of land, Zhuangzi, and shops as mortgages to buy food.Now that the price of food has been brought down, the loss is not small, so the Han family will naturally look to Han Qi for a solution, and Han Qi can't stay out of the matter.

Anyway, Han Qi has been offended to death, Li Buqi is not ready to let go.He said: "I think it is necessary to teach some lessons to those villains who want to make money in the country. And now most of Hebei, East Road, and Shaanxi Road still need a large amount of food for disaster relief. If the rich and unkind big families in these three states cannot If all the food is squeezed out for my use, then the disaster relief in the future may be anticlimactic. Your Majesty should know that the people who were trapped this time were all trying to make the country rich, so they are not worthy of pity."

Hebei is not far from Bianliang, so Zhao Zhen naturally knew that this matter involved the Han family in Xiangzhou, so he planned to save some face for Han Qi.But when Li Buqi said this, he immediately followed Li Buqi's suggestion.Because for him, the emperor, disaster relief and stability are the most important thing. Han Qi is talented, but it doesn't mean that the court will stop turning without Han Qi.In the matter of disaster relief, Li Buqi obviously weighed more than Han Qi.

Han Qi's way of disaster relief is nothing more than opening a Changping warehouse to provide relief, but not to mention that there is not enough food in the Changping warehouse now, even if there is food in the Changping warehouse, the emperor now knows that most of the food will be taken away by powerful households.

After Li Buqi's instigation, he already hated these powerful families so much that he didn't mind teaching them a lesson.Even the emperor heard Li Buqi tell him that he bought the grain that was sold at a high price and now bought it at a low price and made a lot of money.He couldn't help asking: "Since disaster relief can make money in this way, can we use this method in the future?"

Li Buqi saw that the stupid emperor was about to go astray, and quickly said: "Your Majesty, you can't. Disaster relief is not a child's play. If the Changping warehouse is full, you should release the food to the people as soon as possible. This is related to the hearts of the people." It is a major matter of morale. At present, this method has to fight repeatedly with the greedy villain for more than a month. In fact, it has delayed the relief of the victims and damaged the prestige of the imperial court. Expectations are too high."

Seeing Li Buqi's firm attitude, Zhao Zhen had no choice but to nod his head, but he was obviously unwilling, and said again: "It seems that not abandoning this economic method can damage the surplus and make up for the deficiency. It is indeed beneficial to the country and the people. I got something!"

Li Buqi looked at the excited expression on the emperor's face and wondered in his heart: "What? Could it be that the emperor is addicted to robbing the rich and giving to the poor? You also have a little awareness that your own family is the biggest landlord and maggot in the Song Dynasty, okay?"

(End of this chapter)