Eighth year of Chongzhen

Chapter 708 Prepare for a rainy day and make up for it

With the end of the autumn harvest, autumn plowing, and autumn plowing in various places, the main energy of the local governments has been devoted to the busy stage of taxation and storage.

In order to prevent the occurrence of a large number of refugees due to the sudden outbreak of various extreme weather, Zhu Youjian has ordered to build a large warehouse every 30 miles along the two sides of the canal to store grain, and each warehouse can store [-] stone grain and rice .

The canal is the main artery that runs through the north and the south. Building warehouses on the banks of the canal is sufficient to deal with the army of refugees that may appear after a large-scale natural disaster.

Calculated based on the total length of the canal of more than [-] miles, it is necessary to build [-] warehouses and store more than [-] million stones of grain. After completion, it can be used by millions of people for several months.

This measure was taken as a precautionary measure. With these granaries, it is truly possible to have food in hand and not to panic, so that the emperor and court officials in the Forbidden City can sleep peacefully every night.

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, when Chen Qiyu served as the governor of water transport, he had ordered to build several large warehouses. Now these warehouses are jointly managed by the Ministry of Households and the local government. Conduct spot checks to prevent ink corruption incidents.

In addition, the official warehouses of each county government are also being expanded, and the expansion is carried out according to the three-month rations required by the territorial population, so that when force majeure factors occur, the warehouses can be opened for relief as soon as possible to stabilize people's hearts. Waiting for the imperial court to allocate food from other places to come to the rescue.

Both the government and the state will build a granary that can store 30 shi, and the province will build a granary that can store 50 shi.

After these official warehouses are completed, even if there is a major natural disaster, it can be guaranteed that there will be no such bad situation as refugees.

Zhu Youjian's decision received the unanimous response of the important ministers, and the cabinet's text was quickly drafted and sent to the various chief envoys.

Regardless of whether it is to plan for a rainy day or be frightened, anyway, this major policy of benefiting the country and the people has been thoroughly implemented.

From the cabinet ministers down to the county magistrates, all the rulers have lingering fears about the scene of refugees everywhere a few years ago. For a bite to eat, the refugees will do anything.

Besides, the court is indeed too rich now.

The implementation of the New Deal made the warehouses in Taizhou full, and the original ten large warehouses had to be merged and abolished. This made it possible to accommodate the grain, rice, money and goods transported by water.

There are ten treasuries in Ming Dynasty, and they are not only owned by the Ministry of Household Affairs.

Except for the inner transport depot, which is dedicated to the palace, the other nine buildings have their own uses.

Guangji warehouse stores sulfur and saltpeter. (Belongs to the Ministry of Industry)

A character library, storing cloth and paint. (belonging to the household department)

The B character library stores fat jackets, combat shoes, and sergeant fur hats. (Belongs to the Ministry of War)

C font library, storing cotton and silk. (belonging to the household department)

T-shaped library, storing copper and iron, animal skins and hematoxylin. (belonging to the household department)

Wuzi library, storage armor battle. (Belongs to the Ministry of Industry)

The treasury was fined for stolen goods, and official property was confiscated. (belonging to the household department)

Guanghui library stores money and banknotes. (belonging to the household department)

Guangying warehouse stores silk, gauze, brocade and silk. (Belongs to the Ministry of Industry)

In order to free up enough storage capacity, the E-character library originally belonging to the Ministry of Industry was merged with the B-character library of the Ministry of War, thus freeing up a warehouse.

The copper and iron stored in the T-shaped bank have been transported to the Military Weapons Supervision Bureau and General Bureau for their use, and there are not many animal skins and hematoxylin in stock, so they were simply collected by the Four Seas Trading Company and sold in the market.

There is no longer any need for the Guanghui Bank to store treasure banknotes, and all the treasure banknotes that have long been worthless have been sent to paper-making workshops in the suburbs of Beijing for recycling.

After some integration, the vacated large warehouses can be used as granaries after a little modification.

Otherwise, the summer tax collected from more than 20 vassals alone is 580 million shi, which is already a large amount more than the total amount of water transportation every year.

The tank boats on the canal transport about 400 million shi of grain and rice to the capital every year for the use of the capital with a population of one million. This shows how rich the vassals are.

In fact, even under the circumstances of continuous natural disasters and man-made disasters, Daming is not short of food.

The families of the suzerains, vassals, officials, gentry and big families all had enough food, but they just sat and watched the collapse of the Ming Dynasty, but no one gave a grain of rice to the court to relieve the hungry people.

Those big families who were wiped out during the turmoil that lasted for more than ten years are not worthy of sympathy and pity, and the thousands of people killed in Nanjing and Songjiang are not worthy of pity.

Due to the implementation of supporting policies such as Daxing water conservancy, land reclamation, and meeting taxation in the north of the Ming Dynasty for several years, the grain production in the Gyeonggi area has also increased significantly, and most farmers have saved enough rations in their homes. It has greatly reduced the pressure on the Taicang grain depot to release relief.

Accompanied by the bumper grain harvest, the capital’s demand for water transportation has decreased dramatically. If Zhu Youjian hadn’t considered the survival of nearly a million people involved in water transportation, the large number of water boats on the canal that are running day and night would have decreased by more than [-]%.

Now the Gyeonggi area transports as much as one million shi of grain to the capital every year, which is a grand scene that has never appeared in the Ming Dynasty for more than 200 years.

A large part of the taxes paid by the Jiangnan region and the vassals were kept in the local official warehouses.

Because the warehouses of the capital simply cannot hold such a huge amount of grain, this is the reason why the official warehouses in various places need to be expanded.

Let’s take Shandong as an example. The three vassals of King Heng’s Mansion in Qingzhou, King Lu’s Mansion in Yanzhou, and King De’s Mansion in Jinan have a total of 160 million mu of land. This summer harvest has paid a total of more than 70 shi in taxes. For the more than [-] shi paid by the Yanshenggong Mansion, the Shandong Chief Envoy produced [-] shi of grain out of thin air, and all of these grains were left in Shandong, and most of them were used to support the immigration journey outside the customs.

And the chief envoy of Henan who was hit hardest by the disaster back then was Fu Wang, Zhou Wang, Ru Wang, Yi Wang, Zheng Wang and other close relatives. The land under their names was more than that of the suzerain vassal in Shandong. Quite a few, the taxes collected by these vassals were also left in the local official warehouses.

Because King Zhou was the first to surrender, the land under the name of the palace was franchised to enjoy 30 mu of tax-free rights.

In addition to Shandong and Henan, the vassal taxes in Shanxi and Shaanxi were also ordered by Zhu Youjian to be kept in the local area to ensure the rations of the people in the barren areas and maintain the local stability.

The storage capacity vacated by the Taicang grain depot was mainly used to store the taxes paid by the gentry in the south of the Yangtze River and the southern vassals, and a large amount of grain was digested by the Four Seas Winery.

Now that domestic affairs are basically arranged properly, it is time to send troops to Manila.

(End of this chapter)