My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 345 Unexpected Mistakes

Liu Rong was extremely patient with Wei Qing's growth.

Not only because of the historical Wei Qing, Liu Rong had extremely high confidence in Wei Qing's lower limit, but also after witnessing Wei Qing's "extraordinary talent" with his own eyes, Liu Rong also had extremely high expectations for Wei Qing's upper limit.

Of course, Wei Qing’s age was also one of the factors that Liu Rong had to consider.

——Counting on my fingers, Wei Qing is only twelve or thirteen years old this year;
Even if Liu Rong ignored opposition from inside and outside the court and forcibly selected Wei Qing as a senior general, he would have to give Wei Qing the status of a "relative by marriage" first. At the very least, he would have to wait until Wei Qing came of age.

After all, there are still some differences between Wei Qing and the future champion Hou Huo Qubing.

In Liu Rong's opinion, the attribute panel of the future champion marquis is actually more inclined to be a 'general';
Liu Rong's psychological expectation for the Champion Marquis, or the development route arrangement, is roughly consistent with the original history: first, he will take a position like "Piao Yao Xiaowei" and make his first appearance on the battlefield with 1,800 people, and then be promoted step by step based on his merits.

But Wei Qing was different.

Wei Qing's attribute panel is almost entirely based on the standard of "handsome".

According to Liu Rong's psychological expectation, Wei Qing would at least have to be the chief general of a detachment in the first battle - even if he could not become a general in the first battle, he would at least have the rank of general, or even the rank of general of chariots and cavalry.

Therefore, Champion Hou can make his battlefield debut at the age of eighteen, just like in history.

If Liu Rong is credible, then it would not be a big deal if he went to the battlefield earlier - at the age of fourteen or fifteen.

After all, it's just a captain named Yao, with a staff of about 1,800 people. Liu Rong has already thought of the wording.

——My younger brother, the King of Jiangdu, was fifteen years old and had a general's seal hanging from his waist. He was sent out to quell the rebellion of the seven states of Wu and Chu!
With the precedent of King Jiangdu Liu Fei 'taking up the general's seal and going to the battlefield to quell rebellion at the age of fifteen', and the fact that he was a relative by marriage, it was not difficult for Guanjun Hou to make his battlefield debut at about the same age.

But Wei Qing's first battle had to be preceded by his coming of age - and even by his marriage and having children.

Because in this generation, only by giving birth to offspring can a man prove that he is "mature", that he has become a real man, and that he has become an adult who can make important decisions on his own.

"I, am not the same..."

Sitting in the imperial carriage and walking on the imperial road in Chang'an City, Liu Rong couldn't help but let out a sigh.

Inside the imperial carriage, Shaofu Shi Fen, who was invited to ride along, was now sweating profusely on his forehead.

——In the cold winter of the twelfth lunar month, Lao Shifen’s clothes were soaked with sweat!

The reason was definitely not Liu Rong's inexplicable mumbling just now...

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty..."

"Old minister..."

Seeing that Liu Rong looked calm and easygoing, without much anger on his face, Shi Fen instinctively wanted to say something;
But when he thought about how much trouble he had caused, Shi Fen lowered his head guiltily, humming and groaning, unable to utter a word.

Liu Rong was attracted by Shi Fen's light breathing, and seeing Shi Fen acting like this, he just smiled faintly and shook his head, then shifted his gaze to the outside of the car window again.

——Under Shi Fen’s control, there was a minor leak in the Shaofu’s treasury.

Logically speaking, if there is any mistake in such a special institution as the Shaofu Internal Treasury, it will definitely be a big deal.

It can also be seen from Shi Fen's reaction that if Liu Rong wants to investigate this "not too big, not too small" mistake, then Shi Fen, as the first responsible person in the Shaofu, will definitely have to bear the consequences!
The reason why this mistake was neither big nor small - and why Shi Fen was unable to grasp its severity - was precisely because of Liu Rong's nonchalant attitude.

It was originally a big deal, but Liu Rong acted as if it was nothing, so it became a "not big, not small" matter;
Shi Fen was a little unsure, not knowing whether to kowtow and confess his guilt immediately, or wait and see...

"Let's go."

"Go and see."

Soon, the imperial carriage slowly stopped under the driving of Taifu Zhi Buyi - it stopped outside Taicang, the largest granary of the imperial treasury in the southern suburbs of Chang'an.

Speaking of Taicang, it actually has some connection with Liu Rong.

——Before Liu Rong took charge of stabilizing grain prices in Guanzhong during the reign of Emperor Xiaojing, there was only one recognized "No. 1 warehouse" in the world: Ao Cang in Xingyang.

Except for the super large warehouse like Xingyang Ao Cang, the other Shaofu warehouses are basically of similar size and specifications.

To describe it with a phrase from later generations: The granaries of the Shaofu at that time were spread all over the country in the pattern of 'one super and many strong', with Xingyang Ao Cang being the 'one super' and the rest being the 'many strong'.

And this Taicang was one of the 'many strong' at that time;
And at that time it was not called Taicang, but was modestly called: Chang'an Warehouse.

The so-called Chang'an Warehouse, as the name suggests, is mainly responsible for storing the affordable grain prepared by the Shaofu treasury for Chang'an and the surrounding areas.

If grain prices fluctuate, Chang'an Warehouse will open and sell affordable grain to stabilize grain prices.

If the grain price is stable, the grain in Chang'an granary will stay there safely for a year;
After the autumn harvest of the following year, it would be exchanged for the agricultural taxes collected from the Prime Minister's Office.

That is, the Shaofu treasury used the grain that had been stored in the Chang'an warehouse for a year to exchange for the new grain that had just been collected in the Prime Minister's Office.

The prime minister's office received this one year's worth of 'old grain', which was used to pay officials' salaries - officials' salaries were divided into two parts, half in cash and the other half in grain.

When the Shaofu received the new grain of that year, he simply stored it back in the Chang'an warehouse as a "strategic reserve grain" for the next year.

This situation lasted roughly from the reign of Emperor Xiaohui, when Chang'an Warehouse was built, to the third year of Emperor Xiaojing.

In the third year of Emperor Xianjing's reign, not long after the Wu-Chu rebellion was quelled, grain prices in Chang'an were extremely high, and Liu Rong was ordered to take charge of stabilizing grain prices.

Since he was in charge of stabilizing grain prices in Guanzhong, Liu Rong naturally knew about the existence of Chang'an Warehouse, a macro-regulator, at the first opportunity.

But Liu Rong also learned that the grain storage in Chang'an Warehouse could only cope with small fluctuations in grain prices.

Just like back then, with the entire Guanzhong grain merchants and even the aristocratic groups working together to drive up grain prices, the pitiful grain reserves in Chang'an Warehouse - that little bit of affordable grain put on the market - couldn't even make a splash.

Therefore, Liu Rong naturally had to use the late emperor's influence to transfer grain from other granaries in Guanzhong controlled by the Shaofu Treasury to put affordable grain on the market.

The transferred grain was naturally stored in the largest granary in the Chang'an area: Chang'an Granary.

At first, it was fine—the Chang'an warehouse could barely hold the hundreds of thousands of dan of grain.
Later, a grain price war developed to a white-hot stage. The amount of affordable grain in Liu Rong's hands once approached 8 million shi, and the Chang'an warehouse was obviously not enough.

Therefore, Liu Rong immediately ordered the temporary expansion of Chang'an Granary. Later, when the grain price was stabilized, Liu Rong, who would later serve as the Crown Prince and Regent, ordered the temporary expansion of Chang'an Granary to be permanent, and after consulting the late emperor, it was officially renamed Taicang.

As early as during the temporary expansion, the grain storage capacity of Chang'an Warehouse reached nearly 10 million shi. Later, it was renamed Taicang and officially and further expanded, and the grain storage capacity increased significantly to more than 20 million shi!
Although there is still a big gap in quantity compared with Xingyang Ao Cang, after all, both are super large warehouses with a capacity of tens of millions of stones. People inside and outside the court gradually accepted the saying "The granary of the world is Ao Cang in the East and Taicang in the West".

In other words, in the Han Dynasty today, public opinion generally believes that there are two super granaries, Ao Cang and Taicang, as well as dozens of other large granaries with a capacity of millions.

Let’s talk about Taicang.

——In the process of stabilizing grain prices in those years, Liu Rong presided over the initial expansion of Chang'an Warehouse, which mainly stored millet transferred from other places by the Shaofu treasury;
Later, Liu Rong took out wheat flour and pasta to completely stabilize the grain price, and the Chang'an warehouse was changed to store most of the wheat inventory of the Shaofu treasury.

Afterwards it was renamed Taicang and officially expanded, Taicang became the only strategic granary in the Chang'an area that only stored wheat.

After all, according to what Li Rong said at the time: If we want to make wheat replace millet and become the new staple food of the Han people, the government must lead by example - store wheat in warehouses, distribute wheat as a salary, and serve it to meals, etc.

Although secretly, the Shaofu treasury still had a considerable amount of millet in stock, the Taicang became a showcase to show the world that "the government has switched to storing stale wheat."

After these few years, life has been peaceful and quiet.

——During the Chao-Na battle at the beginning of last year and the He-Tao-Mayi battle at the end of the year, the Shaofu treasury also transferred a batch of old wheat from Taicang and ground it into wheat flour as military rations for the soldiers on the front line.

The response has been great;
A considerable number of soldiers said that compared with the past when millet was used as military rations, after changing to wheat flour and pasta as military rations, the soldiers were obviously stronger and in better mental state.

There were even some honest and simple-minded meritorious officers and soldiers who jointly petitioned: they were willing to give up the rewards they deserved, and only asked the court to use wheat flour instead of millet as military rations from now on.

Everything was going in the right direction.

But just a few days ago, when it was time to allocate military rations to the Hetao Front Army, and the Shaofu Treasury was about to transfer food from Taicang as usual, a problem arose...

"Where is the Taicang Order?"

After getting off the imperial carriage, he walked inside surrounded by a group of Shaofu and Taicang officials. Liu Rong asked suddenly, and immediately someone walked forward tremblingly.

"Your Highness, I am Shi Jian, the magistrate of Taicang..."

When Liu Rong heard the Taicang magistrate introduce himself, he immediately understood and felt more sympathy for Lao Shifen.

——Shi Jian, Shi Fen;

Even for those who don't know Shi Fen's family, it is not difficult to tell the relationship between the two from their names.

Shi Jian is the eldest son of Shi Fen.

In addition to his eldest son Shi Jian, Shi Fen had three other sons: the second son Shi Jia, the third son Shi Yi, and the youngest son Shi Qing.

As early as the beginning of Emperor Xiaojing's reign, Shi Fen's four sons all held the rank of 2,000-stone official!

In addition, his old father, Shi Fen, a Taizhong official, also had a rank of 2,000 dan. There were five people in the same family, father and son, all of whom had a rank of 2,000 dan.
Shi Fen was respectfully called "Wan Shi Jun" by the people.

As for Shi Fen's decision to appoint his eldest son Shi Jian as the Shaofu and the Taicang Ling, Liu Rong did not think of it as "abusing power for personal gain".

——Even if he had not been the Taicang magistrate, which was higher than the rank of 2,000-shi, Shi Jian would have been one of them long ago.

The fact that his father, who had always been cautious and prudent, arranged him to be the Minister of the Imperial Household and to take on such an important position as Taicang Ling was not so much a private appointment as it was because Old Shi Fen was really worried about handing over Taicang to outsiders.
After weighing the pros and cons, he sent his eldest son, who had inherited all his skills, to serve as the Taicang Ling, a position where it was difficult to achieve merit but easy to make mistakes.

Liu Rong actually approved of Shi Fen's seriousness in fearing any mistakes, and thus willing to let his eldest son take control of Taicang.

However, now that such an unexpected mistake has occurred, even if Liu Rong does not intend to pursue it, Shi Fen and his son will still be slandered both inside and outside the court.

And what the Shi family feared most was being slandered and criticized by the court because of mistakes...

"How many wheat storages went wrong?"

Finally they arrived at the location where the flaw occurred - several granaries that had been surrounded by the imperial guards. Liu Rong finally revealed the flaws that had occurred in Taicang this time.

——There was a batch of stored wheat, which was no more than three years old, and it became moldy due to various reasons.

In the feudal era, the deterioration of stored grain was actually a very troublesome thing.

In theory, the deterioration of grain, especially stale grain that has been deteriorating for more than a certain period of time, is normal as long as it is not considered improper management.

But in the past few decades, that is, the decades when Emperors Wen and Jing of the Han Dynasty tried their best to save money and grain, the Han Dynasty never had a situation where "old grain deteriorated and the officials were exempted from punishment."

Every time there was a problem of old grain spoiling, the result was always that the chief officer, the warehouse commander, was held accountable, and the warehouse clerks were also held responsible.

The reason is extremely simple and crude: if you hadn't neglected your duties, how could anything go wrong with the stored grain?
This time, the problem is even more troublesome.

——It has only been three years since Liu Rong introduced wheat flour as a killer food and promoted wheat cultivation on a large scale in Guanzhong.

That is, the winter wheat grown by the people in Guanzhong began to be purchased and stored on a large scale by the Shaofu Treasury. After just three years, the winter wheat stocks stored in Taicang began to deteriorate.

Although the amount is not large - only a few thousand stones in total, the hidden dangers exposed by this problem are enough to trigger a political storm inside and outside the court that is no less than a change of regime!
It is not difficult to see from the distressed expressions on the faces of Shi Fen and Shi Jian: no matter how "calm and composed" Liu Rong is, it is difficult to make a big deal out of a small matter...

"Your Majesty."

"Warehouse A has 10,000 shi of wheat in storage, of which about 700 shi are moldy;"

"In warehouses B and C, there are 10,000 dan in each warehouse, and about 1,200 to 130 dan are black."

"Among the ten thousand stones in the Wu warehouse, dozens of them have sprouted..."

Shi Jian reported with a distressed look on his face, which made Old Shi Fen repeatedly raise his hands to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.

Aside from the fact that the age of these old wheats is no more than three years, simple mold and blackening can be attributed to "reaching the age limit";
The reason why stored grain can germinate is undoubtedly due to insufficient ventilation and dry conditions, which leads to excessive humidity.

To use the words often used by later generations: if the stored grain sprouts, it is definitely due to poor storage and the warehouse clerk neglecting his duties, and there is no way to clean it up...

(End of this chapter)