Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1224 Spokesperson

"In the past, the Sui Dynasty levied taxes according to rent and mediocrity. The common people had less land per capita, but the taxes could not be less. The Central Plains was crowded with people and the land was narrow. Especially after more than ten years of stability after the founding emperor, the population multiplied more and reached Daye. At that time, it was difficult to implement the land equalization system, and there was no land to equalize. The common people had only [-] to [-] mu of land or even less, and most of the cultivated land had to be handed over in the end. few."

The six major granaries in the Sui Dynasty were all national reserve warehouses worth tens of millions.

There are also many official warehouses such as social warehouses and free warehouses in the local area. Most of the food is confiscated by the government. In the hands of the common people, especially the ordinary people, there is no surplus of food for a long time, and sometimes it is not enough.

A large amount of food, except in the hands of the court, is in the hands of those big landlords.And once there is a famine, the imperial government's strict storage system stipulates that the warehouse can only be opened for relief after approval from the imperial court, but it takes a lot of time to report layer by layer. Already started to flow.

As for those landlords, they have plenty of food in their hands, but the more they encounter famine in disaster years, the less they will release the food, and they even take the opportunity to raise the price of food and so on.

Therefore, the Sui Dynasty never lacked food, even at the end of the great cause, but the tax system and food policy of the Sui Dynasty made it difficult for the common people to store food, and in case of a famine, the government and landlords would not be able to save food. The food could not reach them again.

"Store wealth for the people, store food for the people, and store soldiers for the people. This is the national policy set at the beginning of our dynasty." These national policies of Luo Cheng are actually learned by later generations, such as the grain purchase plan, such as the earliest The unified food rationing plan and so on, all of these are learned from later generations, and they are all to strengthen food security.

There is food in the official warehouse, but the people also have food in their hands.

Compared with the grain in official warehouses, it needs to be dispatched and time-consuming. If the people have grain in their hands, even if they encounter a disaster this year, they may save themselves as soon as possible.

"In recent years, there have been bumper harvests in various places, and the price of grain has been getting lower and lower. In Lingnan, when the rice harvest is abundant, a bucket of rice is only sold for three renminbi, while in Qingdao and other seaports, it is only sold for five renminbi. Luoyang is the capital of the capital. Prices are more expensive than other places, but rice is only [-] or [-] cents a bucket all the year round, and the most expensive time is no more than [-] cents."

In fact, the common people are suffering too. A bumper harvest will result in cheap grain, and cheap grain will hurt farmers.If there is a famine and poor harvest, it will be even more bitter.

Although the imperial court also set up Changping warehouses, established a peace purchase system, and also set up a grain purchase plan, a large amount of grain was purchased every year, and a protective price was set up. Even in a good year, the grain price would not be too low to harm grain farmers.

The imperial court and the royal family have become the largest grain buyers and sellers. Without those grain merchants in the past who controlled grain prices, manipulated prices, hoarded them, etc., grain prices have remained relatively stable in recent years. People who grow grain and those who buy grain The common people don't have to face the ups and downs of various food price fluctuations and avoid a lot of losses.

Grain trading is a bulk business, and the main cost lies in transportation. If it is a local business, the cost is low.It is said that there is no salary for hundreds of miles, and no purchase for thousands of miles. The cost of transportation on the road is really too high.

However, if the scale increases, the increased cost can be diluted. Luo Cheng likes to do business on a large scale. Generally, small grain merchants mostly do business in their own county or even the county, and the volume is only so large. To do food business is to turn the whole world into a game of chess, unified scheduling, and a large structure, which naturally has its advantages.

But in fact, the grain business is too big. Although the cost can be diluted, it is really not a profiteering business. After all, Luo Cheng will not engage in such things as manipulating grain prices and borrowing disasters to make a fortune. Compared with other royal business, this business Food is not as profitable as raising chickens and ducks. If you set up farms near major cities and supply them to local cities for consumption, the business is much easier than food.

But grain trading is an important thing related to people's livelihood after all. It is a strategic material related to national security. Therefore, even if Luo Cheng was losing money in the beginning, he still instructed the Ministry of the Interior to do it with all his strength.

Fortunately, the people in the Ministry of Internal Affairs are quite shrewd. They have been working for several years, and now they have more than 1000 million shi of grain in storage, and they are still responsible for their own profits and losses, and even have a lot of surplus profits every year.

Hou Mo and Chen Yi are the governors of Henan, Fang Xuanling is the governor of Guanzhong, Du Ruhui is the governor of Shandong, Xi Liang is the governor of Hedong, and Wen Yanbo is the governor of Longyou...

Half of the ministers in the palace were awarded the title of governor, and they went out to patrol the local roads to preside over locust extermination and disaster relief. The emperor also sent more than a dozen eunuchs from the Ministry of Internal Affairs to take charge of the royal family's locust catch in various roads. etc.

military hospital.

Luo Cheng and Sun Simiao got together.

In front of the two of them was a bucket of locust eggs.

"Saint, do you really want to use these locust eggs as medicine?"

"It's not used as medicine, it's made into health care products."

Sun Simiao originally lived in seclusion in Zhongnan Mountain in Chang'an to study medicine and write medical books. Later, he cured stroke for the emperor. He was retained by the emperor and appointed him as the director of the military hospital. The works of doctors, and even many folk remedies.

The old man was very happy working in the military hospital. With the full support of the emperor, he had a lot of doctors and medical students as helpers. He needed money and people, and the compilation work went smoothly.

Under his nominal presidency, the military hospital is also expanding in scale, and now it even exceeds the number of students in the Imperial College.The Guozijian has more than 2000 students, and the military hospital now has more than 5000 students in various departments.

"Saint, locusts are used as medicine in medical books. The whole insect is used as medicine. Its main function is to nourish and strengthen the body. It can cure children's asthma, whooping cough, insomnia, cough and shortness of breath."

Luo Cheng smiled and said, "I know what you said, but so many locust eggs can't just feed chickens and ducks, it's too wasteful. In fact, according to my research, the efficacy of these locust eggs is not worse than that of whole insects, and even more It is nutritious. Steam it, dry it, grind it into a powder, and then add some other things into it, add some sugar and the like, and it will surely make a delicious and nutritious health care powder.”

Luo Cheng has even figured it out. Grind brown rice, soybeans, oats, sweet potatoes, etc. into powder and mix them together, then add a small amount of sugar, salt, and locust egg powder to make a health-preserving powder. In fact, it is similar to five-grain health-preserving pink.

You can even come up with several recipes. For example, you can add hawthorn, lotus seeds, wolfberry, black sesame, red dates, walnuts, ginkgo, etc. for high-end ingredients.

Of course, the most important thing is to use locust egg powder as the main ingredient, and you can even add some sorghum or rice bran to grind the powder if it is low-grade.

Eating these things, of course, does have some benefits, such as not only dietary fiber, but also rich in protein, as well as many vitamins and minerals.

But it is definitely not easy to get the people to accept this kind of thing.

So Luo Chengcheng wanted Sun Simiao to endorse it, saying that he had researched a good thing with many health care effects, and the name of the medicine king is still very famous.

"Actually, I don't want to use this thing to make money, but I just want to turn this locust egg powder into a kind of food."

Luo Cheng believes that if everyone accepts this kind of locust egg powder, there will be no obstacles in eating locust powder in the future. Maybe he will get used to eating it in the future, so he will catch locusts and eat them himself. Can locusts still cause disasters?
(End of this chapter)