The third emperor of the Sui Dynasty

Chapter 898

Using the 'upstart' Shi Yu as a bait to prompt the Zheng family to fill up the grain in the white horse warehouse, and then deal a fatal blow to the Zheng family's dark forces, this is the strategy set by Yang Yu and the important officials in the court against the Zheng family.

For now, the Zheng family is going all out to protect Shi Yu and make up for his shortfall in the white horse warehouse. This also shows that the purpose of using Shi Yu's loss has been achieved, but Zheng's powerful power and quick response make him Yang Tong's plan to wipe out all of them in a clean and tidy way failed, because except for the county magistrates of Chengshi, Chengwu, and Shanfu that Zheng used to sacrifice, almost none of the core forces were exposed.

But the Zheng family was too greedy before and stole too much grain. They bought more than 30 shi of grain from Jiyin County and took advantage of the surprise. One-seventh; this huge hole cannot be filled in a short while, and in order to prevent the imperial court from noticing the problem of Baimacang and arresting Shi Yu, they have to consider not only food, but also time, distance, court eyes and ears, etc. and other problems, so buying food nearby is the only way.

To put it bluntly, Baimacang is the Achilles heel that Mrs. Zheng cannot avoid.As long as the imperial court sent people to wait in Baima County, Dongjun County, and the surrounding five counties of Xuncheng, Lingchang, Weinan, Puyang, and Weicheng, these caravans would appear in the imperial court's field of vision.

In this dispute, the imperial court had a great advantage, and it was on the favorable side to watch the clown jumping coldly. This time, it was not prepared enough, so it was caught by Zheng's surprise, and it would be difficult to make a surprise attack next time.

It's just that this matter should not be discussed in the early morning. Yang Tong didn't go into it, but asked Sinong Temple to prepare for selling grain, so that the price of grain must be kept down.

The price of grain in the Sui Dynasty was like the price of pork in later generations. It was an important indicator to measure prices, and the level of grain prices was a direct criterion for measuring prices.Since ancient times, food is the most important thing for the people, and if there is no food, they will rebel. Therefore, food has always been the foundation of stabilizing the country's foundation. Especially after disasters, all dynasties and dynasties will pay attention to food prices in various places and make preparations at any time.

However, the Central Plains Dynasty had a vast territory, inconvenient transportation, and blocked news. The emperor and courtiers were sitting in the imperial capital, so it was difficult to keep abreast of the national grain production, consumption, and inventory.Therefore, there is a whole set of grain inventory audit mechanism and account verification methods.

The department responsible for auditing grain storage is not located in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, which is in charge of people's livelihood, but is in charge of the Department of Agriculture. The purpose is to prevent the Ministry of Civil Affairs from colluding with local departments directly under the jurisdiction of grain, and cooperating with each other to embezzle the country's grain. .

The Si Nong Temple is in charge of state warehouses, forest gardens, markets, and charcoal supply. It unifies the Taicang, Pingzhun, Shanglin, and Daoguan four departments. The people of the farm temple.

The grain in the national warehouses and the imperial capital is audited once a quarter, and the grain in the local official warehouses is audited once a year. First, the local government reports to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. If there is a problem, it will be investigated by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Criminal Justice will decide the case.

"Your Majesty, Sinong Temple has also heard about the rush to buy food this time. I have already discussed with the officials of Sinong Temple overnight, and made a plan based on the real situation of our court." At this time, Da Sinong Gao Junya got up to report.

"What plan?" Yang Tong asked loudly.

Gao Junya took a few steps forward and bowed his hands: "Your Majesty, besides the national warehouses, I have dozens of county warehouses. When I inspected the warehouses in Bingzhou, I found that some rice grains were stored for too long, or because Because of the weather, some of the granaries were damaged. This time the heavy rain hit the world, and I was afraid that some granaries would be damp, so I asked the Holy One to conduct a thorough investigation of the granaries across the country. If the location of the granaries is unreasonable, change them; , then take it to dry, or sell, or make wine, so as not to cause unnecessary waste.”

Yang Tong was immediately delighted, since the court came to such a move, the Zheng family must be more anxious, right?
He took the memorial submitted by Gao Junya and looked carefully, Gao Junya did not mention any problems with grain storage, but suggested that the imperial court release grain from Taiyuan to stabilize prices.Just north of Bingzhou, where Taiyuan is located, is the thriving East/Turkic region, which has always been an important place in the Sui Dynasty. Taiyuan and Heluo have the most grain reserves.

Daxing City, which was the capital of the country at that time, had a serious shortage of food and high food prices due to many reasons such as large population and little food, inconvenient water transportation, frequent disasters, and malicious hoarding by Guanlong nobles. Therefore, in the early days of Emperor Wen, the court was in poverty. The predicament of having no food to eat in poor and bad harvest years.

As a last resort, Emperor Wen Yang Jian led the team to Luoyang many times to eat.

Emperor Wen, who had such a disgraceful experience, learned from the painful experience and dug the Guangtong Canal during the reign of Emperor Kaihuang to solve the shortage of grain in the capital, so that the grain in Taicang, the capital, was full, and the grain stored in Guangtong Cang could supply the capital for decades. In addition, he has always attached great importance to agricultural production. There have been no large-scale natural disasters in the Sui Dynasty for at least [-] or [-] years, so there are sufficient grain reserves.

Gao Junya said in the memorandum that the imperial court is not allowed to tamper with the grain storage to prevent the people from not saving food to help the people in disaster years. This is a good thing, but even though there are supply and marketing cooperatives to stabilize the grain price, the current grain price is not cheap.

The price of private grain remains high, but the large amount of grain stored in official warehouses has become moldy due to storage for too long. Produce old rice to stabilize food prices in various places.

Gao Junya extended from this to the whole country. He also said in the memorial that the water and land transportation in various places in the Sui Dynasty was convenient, and he could buy surplus grain from other places for storage at any time, so that the imperial court could sell the old rice to the people at a cheap price, and then use it for comparison. High prices to buy new rice back for storage.

The price difference between one sale and one purchase is not large for the court, but it can take into account the needs of strategic reserves, prolong the storage time of stored grain, and benefit the common people who cannot afford high-priced grain.

The memorandum was well-founded and well-organized. Yang Tong was very moved after reading it. After careful consideration, he ordered: "It can be implemented. But first, the Ministry of Civil Affairs needs to calculate the price of grain in various places, and then draw up a detailed regulation. No matter what, we must ensure that the grain reserves are sufficient; if feasible, we must first contact the source of the grain storage to ensure that new grain can be put into storage in a short period of time."

Although Yang Tong had never experienced the events of Emperor Wen, he had also heard about the events of the emperors and ministers of the Sui Dynasty eating Luoyang.

Fortunately, the Sui Dynasty had not been established for a long time at that time, and the period of wars and chaos that had been divided for hundreds of years had just ended. The people cherished the hard-won peaceful life. At the same time, they also knew that the lack of food was caused by natural disasters, not the government’s lack of food. The court was the same at that time. If there is no surplus food, if there is an uprising, not only will there be no food to eat, but it will make everyone's situation even more miserable, so there will be no large-scale civil uprisings.

But as the ruler of this empire, Yang Tong realized the power of natural disasters and the importance of storage. He never dared to be ambiguous in this regard.

Da Sui is now in a critical period when the war is not over and all industries are waiting for prosperity. He does not want any accidents among the people.

"I obey!" Gao Junya saluted and retreated.

Immediately afterwards, there were several memorials on food, most of which were about the price of food in the south. Although Qing, Xu, Jing, and Yang prefectures had fertile land, due to years of war, the fields were barren, and the cost of transferring food from abroad was too high. Therefore, the price of grain remains high, and the people suffer unspeakably. They ask the imperial court to release the official warehouse to stabilize the price, so that the local people can enjoy the grace of God and so on!
Some people also raised issues such as "hamsters" being greedy for ink, poor storage, and damp food, and hoped that the imperial court would conduct a thorough investigation of each warehouse.

This is a "covering" action initiated by Yang Tong and important officials of the imperial court based on the grain theft case. The purpose is to make Zheng think that the investigation of the storage is a general trend caused by the heavy rain, rather than the imperial court aware of the problem with the White Horse Warehouse, forcing them to urgently buy grain to fill the shortfall. , as long as they are in a hurry, they will make mistakes in their busy schedule, exposing more core forces.

However, this vigorous operation is not specifically aimed at the Zheng family. After all, the world is so big and there are so many official warehouses. The food theft incident may not be staged by only one white horse warehouse. .

'Striking the grass to scare the snake' is a coup designed by Fang Xuanling for the Baima warehouse and many official warehouses that may have problems.

The trick to scare the snake out of the grass is to make the matter serious and make the "hamsters" alert, so that they will react in a series like Zheng did.In this reaction, the imperial court wiped out all these "hamsters" and at the same time concealed the main intention of the imperial court against the Zheng family.

"Luokou warehouse is the largest granary in the Central Plains, Jinyang warehouse is the largest granary in the north, Zhuojun warehouse is the largest granary in the northeast, Guangtong warehouse is the largest granary in the northwest, and Jiangyang warehouse is the largest granary in the south of the Yangtze River. According to Da Si Nong, The joint efforts of the five parties can completely solve the food price problem in various places in the fastest time. It may take too long for the Ministry of Civil Affairs to send personnel to investigate, and it will not be able to solve the food price problem. Order the officials of the Imperial Ministry and Sinong Temple to coordinate with the warehouse orders , Local officials handle this matter, and spread it around the Wucang as the center, the Ministry of Civil Affairs is responsible for raising new grain into the warehouse, and the Ministry of Punishment is on standby!"

Yang Tong made a final decision, and the reply was conveyed quickly. The decree was spread to Ziwei Palace, and the official walls of each square were publicized.

……

Zheng Yuancong and Lu Yu, who were in Luoyang City, also got the news immediately.

It's just that there was another gray-haired old man among those who participated in the discussion. This old man was Cui Ling, the Patriarch of the Cui Clan of Qinghe.

As early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the Cui family was a family of public servants. They were originally important ministers of the Qi State, and later established themselves in the Lu State.In the Qin and Han Dynasties, it rose in the area of ​​Qinghe County. Later, it was divided into Qinghe Cui clan and Boling Cui clan. , is recognized as "the most noble family in the world, the head of the northern wealthy family".

Marriage as an alliance has always been an important means for the aristocratic families to consolidate their connections, especially Cui, Lu, Li, Zheng, and Wang, the thousand-year-old families who stand at the top.

These super giants are connected with each other, they are closely related to each other, mutual benefit, symbiosis and coexistence for more than a thousand years, while relying on each other, they also have the heart of competition and infighting. When it comes to their own interests, they will fight openly and covertly, and when it comes to common interests, they will agree Externally; because they have a tacit understanding for more than a thousand years, they can truly work together whenever they have common interests. "In fact, each has his own ghosts.

Now it is the life and death juncture of the thousand-year-old family. Since Zheng and Lu have formed an alliance, how can the Cui family stay out of it?If they don't work together, they will be defeated by Yang Tong one by one sooner or later.Therefore, when Zheng's actions, Cui, who felt that a single tree cannot make a forest, also participated.

The "Zheng family" showed its strength in Jiyin County. In fact, it was Cui, Zheng, and Lu who joined forces. Not only the three clans, but also many small and medium families who obeyed Cui, Zheng, and Lu, some of them belonged to Cui, Zheng, and Lu. Some of the offshoots are old official families who have received the favor of the two families.

If only relying on an extremely weak Zheng family, it would be impossible to gather so many grain merchants in such a short period of time and complete the task so quickly.

In the small meeting hall of the 'Ji Mansion', in addition to the leaders of the three families, there are more than a dozen children of the three families serving as their staff.

"Our actions in Jiyin County have indeed attracted the attention of the court!" Zheng Yuancong said worriedly.

Lu Yu frowned slightly and remained silent.He also knew that the white horse granary was their most fatal loophole, and the imperial court's sudden investigation of the world's granaries hit their lifeblood.

However, he didn't expect that this was the court's target, but he simply thought that the move to drive up grain prices had attracted the court's attention.Food is the foundation of the country, so it's normal for the court to have this reaction, but he didn't know that he was hinted at by the content of the announcement at this time, and without his knowledge, he was subtly affected.After a long time, Lu Yu asked, "How much gap do we still have?"

There was a stack of account books in front of one of the accountants, but he didn't even turn them over. He opened his mouth and said, "Go back to Grandpa, there is still a gap of [-] million shi left unfilled."

"That is to say, we took 230 shi from Baima warehouse?"

"Exactly." The accountant nodded.

As soon as this remark came out, everyone was dumbfounded.

The gap is big, as everyone expected. If there is enough time, it can be filled with new grain. The key is that the court suddenly made this, which completely disrupted their plan to fill it up slowly.

Although the imperial court began to investigate from Luokou warehouse, Jinyang warehouse, Zhuojun warehouse, Guangtong warehouse, and Jiangyang warehouse, but Baima warehouse is a national warehouse and is close to Luoyang. I am afraid that after the Luokou warehouse is over, it will be the next one.

For the three races, time is very precious and the situation is very serious.

Cui Ling, the Patriarch of the Cui Clan, said slowly, "Can you allow me to say something."

Zheng Yuancong hurriedly said, "Mr. Cui, please tell me."

"The "Tao Te Ching" said: 'The highest goodness is like water. Water is good for all things without fighting, and it is evil for everyone, so it is almost in Tao. Live in a good place, have a good heart, be kind and benevolent, speak good faith, be good at governance, do good and capable, and move good Time. The husband does not fight, so there is no worry'... This is very consistent with the survival rules of our family!" Cui Ling said: "No matter how powerful we are, we can only use the power of water to moisten everything to influence the court. The court's domineering thunder tactics. Don't underestimate Yang Tong. Although he is a junior, his control over the court and the world can be said to be unprecedented. The imperial power is in his hands, realizing the true meaning Great unification, even the ancient Qin Emperor and Han Wu were not as good, not to mention the Sui Dynasty's civil and military forces who were deeply restrained by the Guanlong nobles. If he had known about the vacancy of the White Horse Warehouse early on, with his control of the world, it would have been a serious injury We with vitality have no chance of winning. Furthermore, is Shi Yu willing to listen to our orders and become our arms and eyes in the court?"

Zheng Yuancong and Lu Yu frowned, knowing that Cui Ling was planning to sever his wrists and give up Shi Yu.

"What Cui Gong said can indeed make us retreat completely, but Shi Yu knows too much. Even if he disappears, there may not be some accounts left. If the court follows the inquiry, the truth will come to light sooner or later. This is one of them; 20. Not only do we have no one in the court, we don’t even have a county guard, but with the current number of talents in the court and the youngness of important ministers, there will be no vacancies for central positions in less than ten or twenty years. The people who conquered the world in Dong gradually withered away, and the talents cultivated by the imperial court using paper books and the three schools have spread all over the world. At that time, we will have no advantage at all." Lu Yu stared at Cui Ling and said solemnly: "In other words, this A period of time is a period we must fight for, even if we can't produce a minister, we still need to have a few servants, and now there is finally a rising upstart, we really can't give up lightly."

Cui Ling sighed softly: "Grandpa Lu mentioned our biggest difficulty, but this old man is worried that Shi Yu will become the second Pei Ju and the second Pei Yun... These two brothers are our Shandong gentry who are trying to secure the top position. , but they only cared about their own Pei family."

Lu Yu said: "There is no need to worry about this. Er Pei was born in the Pei family in Hedong, so the two of them don't rely on us much, and they can easily get rid of us. Shi Yu is just a poor man, and he doesn't have the qualifications for Er Pei. Only by relying on our strength can we gain a foothold in the court. This is the situation we most hope to see, after all, the three of us are in the same group of 'Chunqiu Hall', and it is not good for the leader to use any family's children, lest this person is biased toward another family."

Zheng Yuancong also said: "We have suffered a lot in troubled times, and now we are weakened to the lowest level in history. It is true that the leader cannot be taken by any core disciples, but by someone who has no foundation other than us. After one person goes up, bring out another person , We balance the power between them behind the scenes, and it is up to us to formulate rules, coordinate communication, and control the overall situation.”

Cui Ling pondered for a moment, and then said: "You also said that in the future, let Shi Yu take advantage of Yin to promote wisdom, and the temple forces will not follow our rules, will Shi Yu lose control?"

"The power of the temple is not so easy to borrow. If you are not careful, you will plant yourself in it. Shi Yu is a smart man, and he will not overuse the power that can make him burn himself." Zheng Yuancong said: "What's more, it's not us The most urgent thing to consider now is to push him up and bring more people with him. Cui Gong’s concern is also a few years or ten years later. By then, we will not rely so much on Shi Yu. Seriously, it’s not impossible to find someone to replace it.”

"Since that's the case, then find a way to fill the gap." Cui Ling nodded slightly, acquiesced in the decision to adjust grain and protect Shi Yu, and returned to the original topic, saying: "My Cui family's second sect is in Shuangliao County, Yu There are 40 million shi of new grain hidden in Yangjun and Beiping counties. They were originally intended to be sold to Goguryeo and Baekje. It is very convenient for the old people to go south by sea. Moreover, there is no drought or flood in Liaodong, and the harvests are abundant. They are bought from the people at high prices. Surplus food is not difficult. It's just that I'm a little worried..."

"worry about what?"

"The old man is worried that the issue of the White Horse Warehouse has been leaked. Yang Tong's actions have been prepared for a long time. If this is the case, then his current government order is obviously to scare the snake away, leaving us at a loss and exposing ourselves. Once we make a big move, he will His successors will surely make us fall into a situation beyond redemption."

Lu Yu nodded and said: "What Cui Gong said is true, we have considered this point. But has Cui Gong ever thought: His method is not to scare the snake, but to already know our existence?"

Cui Ling's expression changed slightly and he said, "Mr. Lu, are you saying that we have been exposed long ago?"

"Exactly!" Lu Yu nodded and said, "We all know that Yang Tong controlled a terrifying army of assassins, who killed all the officialdom in Wei State back then, and after Li Mi lost these low-level officials, his rule was in a state of helplessness. The chaos of human supervision was also the direct reason for his instant decline and defeat in the south of the Yangtze River. During this period, Yang Tong sent assassins to assassinate officials of Li Mi. The factions were also slaughtered, and many of the factions that my Lu family hid very deeply were also brutally murdered. From this, it can be seen that Yang Tong knows more about us than we imagined. Maybe he wanted to attack us a long time ago. However, we are already a citizen of the Sui Dynasty. If the name is not right and the massacre is not followed, the world will be in turmoil and people will panic. He does not want to take this risk, let alone bear the reputation of killing innocent people, so he silently waits for the opportunity , Right now is obviously a good opportunity to massacre us. And we have indeed tampered with in Baimacang, there is no guarantee that we will not be found out, if we stand still, then he has a reason to wipe us out."

Cui Ling said speechlessly: "Then we can only be led by the nose?"

"It can't be helped! Who made the White Horse Warehouse our weakness, and now we can only fill this loophole as soon as possible." Lu Yu showed a bitter smile, and said: "And the matter may not be what we are worried about. , because after Yin Hongzhi extinguished the fire, he only moved the five cellars "on fire" grain cellar, and then hurried to the embankment. , did not attract the attention of the local people at all. Si Nong Temple and the officials of the Imperial Ministry, who checked grain every year and investigated carefully, could not find any problems. Yin Hongzhi was eager to fight the flood, so how could he see anything in such a short period of time?"

Cui Ling nodded slightly, but his eyes flickered faintly, and he didn't know what he was thinking.But he still told the children of the clan around him: "Let Liaodong's food go south as soon as possible."

"Follow the master's order!"

(End of this chapter)