Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 934

The spring of the fourth year of Kaiyuan seemed to be extraordinarily cold.

It snowed heavily in Luoyang City for more than three days, and many houses in the city collapsed.

Sun Wuji, the newly appointed governor of Luoyang, ordered the young and strong in the city to mobilize to help clear the snow and save people, and at the same time resettled the affected people.At the same time, he also asked the Jinwu Guard for help.

The emperor sent the Jinwu Guard, who was in charge of public security in the capital, to help with disaster relief, and also dispatched the Beiya Imperial Army and the Internal Army to dispatch.

Due to timely rescue and resettlement, although many people in the city were affected by the disaster and many houses collapsed, only a dozen people died of crushing, freezing and starvation. It has to be said that this is almost a miracle.

At the court meeting, the emperor greatly appreciated the newly appointed Governor of Luoyang.

After the next dynasty, the emperor summoned Sun Wuji, the governor of Luoyang, and Gao Shilian, the minister of the Ministry of Rites, in the Hall of Yisui.

After listening to the latest situation reported by Changsun Wuji, Luo Cheng was very satisfied. The snow finally stopped slowly and the disaster was brought under control.The treasury pulled out a large amount of charcoal to relieve the people, and many people whose houses were damaged were also moved to safe places, and everyone finally survived.

"There are soldiers from the imperial army in the city to help. The situation is not bad. It's just that there are more than [-] counties outside Luoyang city, but did they get timely help?"

As the Governor of Luoyang and a member of the third rank, the young Changsun Wuji is not only in charge of the city, but also more than 100 counties outside the city. He is an officer with a population of more than [-] million, and his palms and backs are full of flesh.

"Returning to Your Majesty, the situation reported by the counties is very good. The Luoyang government has mobilized all the government soldiers, county soldiers, township regiments, and militiamen to rescue the disaster. Everyone worked together and performed very well."

Luo Cheng nodded in satisfaction.

Disasters happen every year, and the key lies in the ability of the imperial court and the local government to organize rescues. The most important thing about the outstanding performance of the Luoyang government this time is not all the credit of Changsun Wuji, but that the imperial court had a plan in advance. After the incident, the governments at all levels will implement it on a regular basis according to the plan.

The performance of Changsun Wuji is that he has a strong execution ability, has a good plan, and then has a good execution, so everything is fine.

"Although the snow is about to stop, you still can't take it lightly. It is said that it is not cold when it snows. It is necessary to do a good job of preventing cold and freezing, especially for those orphans, widows and disabled people. Officials should go to the counties to do some contract work, the county should also send officials to the countryside to do some work, and the township should also send officials to the villages. We must form a layer-by-layer contract, and have a special person in charge. We must not let the snow freeze again. One person dies, another person starves to death."

This method of staying on a short-term contract is one of the powerful methods of the later celestial dynasties, and Luo Cheng thinks it is very powerful.

"The government should also register the destroyed houses of the people. The court can ask for help and subsidize part of it, and then report it to the court. The court will allocate a special sum of money for interest-free loans to the people. Repairing and rebuilding houses will not allow people to live without a fixed place in this cold spring."

Luo Cheng is a person who lived and grew up in the later generations, so he has a very strong experience, that is, the stability of the heavenly dynasty in the later generations.Stability is the priority and the foundation of all development.

Letting people have a place to live and food to eat is the prerequisite for stability.

It is Luo Cheng who strongly advocates issuing interest-free loans to disaster victims and at the same time cracking down on usury of disaster wealth.In the past Sui Dynasty, because of the unreasonable tax system, local officials didn't even have salaries and relied entirely on their income from their jobs.The government has no office funds and relies entirely on public land and public money.

The imperial court gave a piece of land another sum of money, and then the government handed over the money to the rich and powerful children of the people, allowing them to lend money and charge high-use office expenses. The monthly interest rate is [-]%, and the annual interest rate is almost doubled. , I have to say that this is very high, and it has also had a bad influence on the court.

So now Luo Cheng has banned this kind of public money and banned private usury.

In such a disaster situation, he even offered free loans to the victims of the disaster.

It's even just the beginning of spring, but the court is already discussing and passing a young crop law of the emperor.The so-called green crop law actually means that people can apply for a loan from the imperial court in the spring for the purchase of seeds or lease of cattle for production needs, and then after the summer harvest, the principal and interest will be repaid at a very low interest rate.

The Young Crop Method actually appeared in history at the end of the Tang Dynasty, and was improved during the Northern Song Dynasty Reform. It was originally a good method, but it was distorted due to various reasons.

The Qingmiao method in the Northern Song Dynasty was to take out the grain stored in the country's Changping warehouse, convert it into money, and then lend it to rural farmers or city residents, and then charge interest.

In doing so, on the one hand, it can combat and restrain private usury, and on the other hand, it can alleviate the needs of the people.

The interest of the young crop method is two cents, which is 20.00% per annum.

Compared with the 90.00% annual interest rate of Sui public money, it is obviously much lighter, and much lower than private loans.

However, many anti-reformists opposed the Qingmiao Law in the Northern Song Dynasty, so they deliberately messed up, and there were some things that were not in place, so that this beneficial law eventually became a law that harmed the people.

The young crop method that Luo Cheng is discussing is a half-year loan with [-]% interest.Loans in spring are repaid after the summer harvest, and loans in summer are repaid after the autumn harvest.

The capital of the green crop method also comes from the country’s Changping warehouse to prepare grain. The imperial court used half of the money and grain as capital to issue green crop loans to support the people. After recovering the principal and interest of the money, the money was used to buy from those grain-producing areas. buy food.

The price of grain in the grain-producing areas will definitely be relatively cheaper. This way of buying grain and storing it in the warehouse can not only guarantee the imperial court's grain reserves, but also benefit the imperial court due to the difference in grain prices.

Luo Cheng set a red line for the Green Crop Law, that is, the government is strictly forbidden to force the people to borrow money, let alone outsource the money and grain to lend, and only half of the grain in the Changping warehouse is allowed to lend at most.Interest is also fixed, and officials are prohibited from raising interest rates privately.

In addition, Qingmiao loans are not granted to the upper three households among the ninth-class households, unless it is a disaster year, and the circumstances are special.

The loan period is half a year, and cannot be collected in advance, so as to avoid the situation that the superficial interest is one cent, but the actual interest is two or three cents due to the early interest collection.

At the same time, when repaying the loan, money can be exchanged for goods. The ultimate goal is to facilitate the people, especially to support ordinary people, so that they will not be trapped in debt.

In the face of a disaster like the one now, Luo Cheng wants the court to issue a disaster relief law, allowing local governments to use the money and food from charity warehouses and social warehouses to rescue the people, distribute food for disaster relief, and borrow interest-free loans.

"One more thing. There are more than 100 counties in Luoyang, with a population of more than [-] million. As far as I know, the implementation of the land equalization order is not very smooth?"

"Returning to Your Majesty, the land of Luoyang has always been narrow to the people, and this place is located in the heart of the Central Plains. Therefore, the rich and powerful have bought land and land, and the annexation has been serious. Although the imperial court distributed unclaimed land and government land to the people, the people still have to grant land. It is far lower than the number of acres of land in other counties and counties, on average, the land granted per town is only about [-] acres."

(End of this chapter)