please make me king

Chapter 596 Economic Warfare

After Wang Qingzhi bid farewell to Zhang Shun, how could Zhang Shun sit still?He hurried to Zhang Shenyan's residence.

Zhang Shenyan was busy in the house, assigning tasks to the subordinates one by one, and checking the progress of the work.

Seeing Zhang Shun coming in person, he knew something important must happen.He hurriedly dealt with the urgent matter with a few words, and sent the rest to ask them to come back tomorrow.

After that, Zhang Shenyan was about to come up to greet him, but Zhang Shun grabbed him.He smiled and said: "It's urgent, so I have to disturb Mr. Zhang. And without red tape, come with me."

Zhang Shenyan was skeptical, and followed Zhang Shun three times and two times to the residence of Hong Niangzi.

Jian'er was guarding outside the door, when he saw Zhang Shun, Zhang Shenyan and others coming, he quickly saluted and ran in to report.

Ever since other rebel leaders "Chuang Wang", "Chuang General", "Eight Great Kings" and "Living Cao Cao" came to Luoyang City, in order to avoid being recognized by others, Hong Niangzi had already been out of the gate. Try to let the next person go to deal with it.

Although Zhang Shun has no one around now, he is only busy with work, so he seldom comes to her room.In this way, she was much more relaxed.

Now she has been pregnant for six or seven months, and she is quite exhausted, and she is lying on the bed to raise her baby.When she heard that Jian'er had run away, she reported: "The head of the family came here hand in hand with Mr. Zhang, and asked Madam to get up and see her."

When the red lady heard it, it was just a big deal.Quickly tidied up a little, got up and went out.

As soon as Zhang Shun saw the red lady coming out, he rushed over in three steps at a time, grabbed him and blamed him: "I'm not an outsider, what are you messing around with? I just think you are inconvenient, let Jianer pass it for you." It’s just a letter, how can you care about these red tapes?”

The red lady was happy when she heard the words, she pursed her lips and smiled, and welcomed the two of them in, and let Jian'er serve the tea.

At this time, Zhang Shenyan couldn't wait to ask: "I don't know what's the matter, my lord? It's so solemn."

Zhang Shun picked up the tea and took a sip, then smiled and said: "Don't worry, I have something to ask you two to help me with the details!"

"Speaking of Zhang being ignorant and ignorant, we learned that the original important town on the Nine Frontiers was mainly based on salaries, and most of the rest of the food came from his farmland. If there is any shortage, he will buy the food himself. I don't know if it is true or not?"

Zhang Shenyan and Hong Niangzi never expected that Zhang Shun would mention this moment, and they were confused for a while.

The red lady is also from the frontier, and she couldn't help laughing: "I'm a woman and Taoist family. Although I don't know the details, I heard her rumors, and it's not bad. Shipped from the mainland."

Although Zhang Shenyan didn't know much about this, but as an official of the imperial court, he still had some understanding of the operating system of the frontier army.

He said: "At the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the food for the frontier army was mainly based on military settlements and the true nature of the democratic movement. If the military settlements and the democratic movement were insufficient, merchants opened the middle to pay for it. During the Jiaqing and Wanli years, the system gradually deteriorated. The original color has changed to fold color, and the grain received in Kaizhong has also been changed to accept silver in Kaizhong. The frontiers have more silver and less grain, so they have to buy grain by themselves.”

After all, Zhang Shun was a layman, and he couldn't help being confused when he heard people talk about "true color" and "fold color" many times.He hurriedly asked: "May Mr. Zhang please explain it to me in detail. What is true color? What is folded color? And what is Kaizhong?"

It was only then that Zhang Shenyan remembered that Zhang Shun was born as a commoner, and he didn't know much about many systems of the imperial court.He laughed and said: "The so-called 'true color' is wheat and rice. In the early days of the country, taxes were collected, and wheat rice was collected in summer and autumn, which is called true color. The rest of the forage, cloth, etc. can also be converted into rice and wheat. The 'fold color'."

"During the Wanli period, Zhang Taiyue and Zhang Ge's elders, oh, Zhang Juzheng's reforms, all collected silver from the mu, and transferred it to the officials. The so-called "folding color" mostly refers to receiving silver."

"As for Kaizhong, it is actually the Kaizhong method. It originally meant that merchants transported some grain to the granary in the border area and received some salt. Therefore, there is a saying that Kaizhong accepts grain. It was only later that the dignitaries and courtiers used it as a method of profit and discussed it with many parties. It needs to be salted, so that the food will be empty."

"Later, the imperial court simply bought and sold salt, and then used the silver obtained as military pay for border towns, so it was called Kaizhong Nayin. As for buying rice, it was called buying grain."

Only then did Zhang Shun understand how the border towns in the Ming Dynasty operated. He couldn't help laughing and said, "Please trouble Mr. Zhang, Mr. Zhang would like to be taught!"

"It's just that Zhang Gong once said that there will be locust plagues after a severe drought. Is this true?"

Zhang Shenyan saw that Zhang Shun had just finished talking about the rations of the frontier army, and then looked around and talked about him, not knowing what he meant.He had no choice but to continue to respond: "The old minister has personally experienced it, and even passed it down from the old to the old, there is absolutely nothing wrong with it!"

"Okay!" Zhang Shun couldn't help laughing, "I heard Lu Weiqi say earlier that the Grand Canal transports grain from the south of the Yangtze River to the capital, but only four million shi. Let's say the frontier army has half a million soldiers."

As soon as Zhang Shun said this, Zhang Shenyan couldn't help interrupting: "At the beginning of the country, the Nine Frontiers had a strength of [-], but now it's probably less than [-]."

"Well, let's calculate with [-] yuan." Zhang Shun was as good as he was, and since he had a rough figure, he didn't need to estimate it himself. "Assuming that the frontier army is short of half of the food, it needs to buy [-] million shi every year." .”

"Nowadays, the weather is not good, natural disasters continue, and many places are in danger of famine. Not to mention that Shaanxi has been suffering from famines for years, and the people are in dire straits. Shanxi was ravaged by rebels, officers and soldiers last year, and it will not return to its former prosperity in a short while. "

"The land of Henan is not only suffering from military disasters this year, but also a severe drought in the whole province. If there is another locust plague next year, not to mention the food and grass of the frontier army, I am afraid that the food will not be far away. In this way, the entire north can only rely on Shandong , North Zhili food support."

"As for the grain in northern Zhili and Shandong, it is not enough to support the capital. Next year, four million shi of grain will be transported from the south of the Yangtze River. How can there be surplus grain for him?"

"In addition, Mongolia and the Kingdom of Jin are short of food, so they smuggle food from the border areas to avoid famine. If the entire north suddenly lacks food by a million stones, what will the consequences be?"

Zhang Shenyan and Hong Niangzi's eyes widened when they heard the words, and they were speechless for a long while.Zhang Shun's analysis seems simple, but in fact, starting from big data, he estimated the food shortage in the entire north of Ming Dynasty.

This set of techniques is originally a common technique for blowing water on netizen forums after the later generations entered the information society, and it was fully learned by Zhang Shun.

In ancient times, due to the backwardness of information, such means of big data analysis only existed in the hands of a few high-level people.

Even characters like Zhang Shenyan and Hong Niangzi, how could they expect this?
It's like a high-rise building, analyzing the situation of food shortage in the north from head to toe.

How come Zhang Shenyan and Hong Niangzi still don't understand Zhang Shun's plan?He actually wants to take advantage of this opportunity to fry food, and play the trick of "hoarding and hoarding", transforming from a military war with real swords and guns to an "economic war" and food war with swords and swords.

Regardless of whether you are a frontier army, Mongol or Jurchen, how sharp your knives and guns are, how skilled your bow and horse are, how strong your martial arts are, without three meals a day, you can only lie on the ground and call me "Grandpa" "!"
In fact, the real situation is even more serious than Zhang Shun imagined.In July and August alone, the Qing army looted Xuanfu, Datong, and Shanxi, looting a lot of grain and livestock, and it caused a big blow to the local agriculture.

(End of this chapter)