Haisheng Mingdi

Chapter 255

Hangzhou City.

Ever since Zhu Guofan, the prefect, announced that the entire city would be provided with food during wartime, and borrowed troops from Admiral Tian Xiong to forcibly confiscate the food from the people's homes, the atmosphere in Hangzhou became more and more dignified day by day.

The food in the city was forcibly confiscated, and then each soldier could get one liter of rice every day, and the common people's family could get one liter of rice.An official's day is two liters.

As a large southeast city, Hangzhou has a large population. It needs 30 shi of rice in one month, and [-] shi of rice in a normal day.

Not counting other non-staple foods such as meat, eggs and vegetables.

How big is Hangzhou City?Forty miles around!
There are hundreds of thousands of households inside and outside the city, and it can reach more than a million people. Even if Hangzhou is only surrounded now, the population of soldiers, civilians and artisans in the besieged city is hundreds of thousands.

To be precise, the city's population is no less than 50 million at ordinary times, which is not much different from the cities of Susongjiang, Ningyang, and Yangzhou.

Such a large city is already a large industrial and commercial city with budding capital. The vast majority of the city's population is engaged in industrial, commercial and manufacturing industries, and the food and non-staple food it needs are huge.

It consumes 360 million shi of rice a year.

However, Hangzhou has always hoarded rice and other food in the suburbs of Qitang Town, Linping Town, Beixinguan, and Liuliu City, the canal towns outside the city, not to mention the required meat and vegetable non-staple foods They have to be brought in from outside the city every day.

Hangzhou has been sealed off for more than half a month, and the meat and vegetables have long been cut off. As for the little food in the homes of the people in the city, and the little food in the grain shop, even if the supply is limited, it will not last long.

The price of rice on the black market has reached a high price of ten taels of silver per stone, and it is still rising.Even sorghum, sweet potatoes, and even bran that are usually used to feed livestock are more expensive than rice in the past.

Those officials wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune, saying that they were supplying grain to the people in a limited amount. As a result, they first mixed coarse grains into it, then mixed it with chaff, and finally mixed sand and mud into it. Get some things in the house, withhold some food, and resell it at a high price when you get it on the black market.

The officials cheated the common people, and the military officials cheated the soldiers.

As a result, the food everyone gets every day is just gruel to hang their lives, and now mice in the city can be sold for one hundred yuan.

Horses, mules, cats and dogs have been eaten up, and mice and sparrows have become rare commodities.

Everything that can be eaten has now become a good thing in the eyes of the people of Hangzhou. Everyone is trapped in this big city, sitting and waiting to die every day.

If the West Lake was not outside Hangzhou at this time, it is estimated that the West Lake would have allowed them to scoop up the water and catch all the fish to eat.

Hundreds of thousands of people with starving eyes can't help but swallow their mouths now. It is said that some people have started selling rice meat on the black market. The so-called rice meat is actually human meat.

The number of beggars in Hangzhou is decreasing sharply. Some people kidnap them and kill them for food or sell their meat.

Less than a month after the siege, Hangzhou actually started eating people.

After all, the Qing army never thought that Hangzhou would be besieged. They were unprepared and prepared for all this. Food was still stored in the outskirts of the city as usual.

"grown ups,"

The Hangzhou pusher brought a box in front of the prefect Zhu Guofan, "This is the adult's share."

Zhu Guofan opened the box, and the golden light was dazzling.

"This is 800 taels of gold."

The pusher told Zhu Guofan with a smile that he had exchanged it for gold on purpose, and cast these eighty large yellow croakers.

"Silver takes up more space."

800 taels of gold can be worth 2000 taels of silver on time, and 50 taels of silver ingots are worth 240 ingots.

But now in Hangzhou, one tael of gold can be exchanged for less than one stone of grain, and the price of grain on the black market is soaring every day.

"Thank you." Zhu Guofan accepted it with a smile on his face.

"It's all a matter of a lowly job. The city has been besieged for a long time, and the price of food in the black market has been getting higher and higher." Although he took the opportunity to make money from the war, he never saw reinforcements. It’s quite profitable. Others eat grain porridge mixed with sand and soil every day, but they can still eat rice with plain grains, and even have a way to eat meat. There are still a lot of dry goods such as Jinhua ham.

There is even a way to get some freshly slaughtered meat such as horse mules.

But I'm also afraid that if the city is destroyed, no matter how much you earn, it will be a waste of time.

"My lord, when will the reinforcements arrive?"

Zhu Guofan let out a long sigh.

Pushing officer Xu An couldn't help but panicked, "What's wrong? But there's new news?"

"The reinforcements probably won't come."

"How is it possible? The imperial court can't ignore Hangzhou, right? Governor Zhang, Governor Xiao, and the others are going to move reinforcements, and they will definitely arrive soon."

But Zhu Guofan just said, "If it's true according to what you said, the reinforcements have almost arrived, but what is the truth? Hangzhou has been besieged for so many days, let alone reinforcements, we haven't even seen a bird from Jiangning, have we?"

"It is said that Jiangning is far away, but Huzhou, Jiaxing and even Songjiang are not far away. Why didn't a single soldier see it?"

"I heard the news that Governor Zhang and Governor Xiao were ambushed in Huzhou. I heard that the entire army was wiped out. Now the entire Huzhou and Jiaxing have been captured by the Ming army, and we are isolated."

"Ah?" The pusher trembled.

"The most terrible thing is not only that, Su Song is also not peaceful. I heard that the army and navy are now harassing everywhere. Li Chengdong in Jiading lost several cities in a row, and the governor of Jiangning, Tu Guobao, even lost Wujiang City under his nose."

"Even Jiang Ning is not peaceful."

"One more thing, I heard that Anfu Hong has been reprimanded by the court for not doing enough to appease the south of the Yangtze River, and he was transferred to Huguang to do business strategy. I heard that the troubles in Huguang are even worse now. Jingzhou, Wuchang, and Xiangyang are all besieged and may be captured at any time. , then we can go down the river and take Jiangning directly."

Xu An's face paled in shock. Although he was a little worried during this time, he always felt that the court could not ignore Hangzhou, and reinforcements would arrive soon, so he was busy with embezzlement and money, without even thinking too much about it.

"How do adults know the news?"

Zhu Guofan stretched out his finger and pointed out, "The Ming army outside comes every day to recruit security and persuade them to surrender, and they shoot a lot of arrows and books every day. These news are not confidential. Although Tian Junmen doesn't let outsiders, I don't know. "

"My lord, what Ming Jun said is not credible, he must have lied to us."

Zhu Guofan let out another long sigh, which made Xu Anxin tremble.

"We know to take advantage of the opportunity to sell food on the black market in the city. You don't understand the city's bid? Someone has secretly smuggled it out of the city."

"what?"

"It's nothing surprising, it's a normal thing. They guard the city, taking advantage of people's unpreparedness, using ropes and baskets to secretly trade with the Ming army under the city."

"That's okay too?"

"There's nothing wrong with it. Soldiers are also human beings. The Qing army in the city is human, and the Ming army outside the city is also human. Who doesn't like money?"

"The two red-clothed cannons that were damaged in the last artillery battle were pushed down to the Ming army by a guerrilla who raised the bid. One of the damaged red-clothed cannons was exchanged for a thousand catties of rice."

hiss!
(End of this chapter)