Please ask me to be the emperor

"This year there is a severe drought in Jingbian. The land is bare for thousands of miles. Nine out of ten people died of hunger. Everyone eats each other!"

"There is a drought in Yaozhou. There was no snow last winter and no rain this winter. The wheat seedlings are all dead and the plague is very serious."

"Lanzhou is hungry this summer. Di and He are both deserted. Many people will starve to death!"

Lu Weiqi reported to Zhang Shun word for word with a serious face, "There are also Yan'an and other places. King Shun has witnessed it with his own eyes, so I won't say any more."

Jingbian is the Jingbian camp affiliated to Yulin Town, not far from the Ningsai camp where Du Wenhuan's family was killed by Shen Yiyuan.

As for Yaozhou, Zhang Shun had carefully inspected it before, but he didn't expect the situation to be so serious.

"Jingbian and Yaozhou are fine." Zhang Shun sighed and said, "I have ordered Yaozhou and Tongguan County to be the front lines for receiving and resettling the refugees, with Song Qijiao and Shi Changsheng in charge of this matter."

"But sir, I still have to draft an order for me, specifically emphasizing Yaozhou's disaster relief and farming."

"The sweet potatoes and old farmers sent by Zhang Shenyan have arrived. Send them to Yaozhou, Yan'an and other places for me as soon as possible."

"Grow me corn in the fields, plant sweet potatoes in the corners of the ravines, and scatter alfalfa and alfalfa seeds in the mountains. I must make famine relief and disaster relief my top priority!"

The yield of corn per mu is only over 100 kilograms, but compared to crops such as wheat and highland barley, it is particularly drought-resistant and can ensure a basic harvest during drought.

According to the experience of planting sweet potatoes in Heluo this year, in addition to being large in quantity and growing quickly, sweet potatoes also have the characteristic of not being afraid of locusts, which can also make up for the shortage of staple food.

As for alfalfa and fluffy grass, although they are not food for humans to eat, they are at least much better than chewing tree bark or eating Guanyin soil.

Saving people's lives at critical times is the greatest form of good governance.

"His Royal Highness King Shun, this order to plant corn and sweet potatoes is okay, but asking the people to grow alfalfa and grass for food is hard to say!" Lu Weiqi hesitated for a moment and couldn't help but remind him.

For example, for a simple example, if we look back at the history books and read, "The King of Qin conquered Qin, there was a great famine in Yan'an and Yaozhou, and the people lived on alfalfa and fluffy grass." This sentence would not sound as good as "There was a great famine, and many people died." "It sounds good.

Zhang Shun was so angry that he almost died when he heard this. He couldn't help but rebuke: "A man walks in heaven and earth, but he wants to have a clear conscience. How can he disregard the lives and property of the people for the sake of fame and fortune?"

"By the way, when you are helping me draft the order later, ask Song Qijiao why he never reported the drought to me when I was in Yaozhou!"

These people don't seek no merit, but seek no fault. Are they really planning to change their names and continue to serve as "pastors" under my command?

"I understand!" Lu Weiqi couldn't help but promise after hearing this.

"Jingbian ordered Lu Xiangsheng to mobilize some grain from Yulin for relief!" Zhang Shun frowned and said.

"Lanzhou, Hezhou and Didao, please ask Lintao Commander-in-Chief Zhang Yingchang to mobilize some military rations to provide relief as soon as possible."

"First some of the shortfall will be transferred from Qinzhou, which has more farmland, and the rest will be made up from the new grain tax collection!"

"Then there is Zhang Yingchang's report. Hezhou is a mixture of Han and Han people. It is located at the junction of Xia and Yi. The chieftains of all the tribes are not convinced. I don't know how to respond?" After hearing this, Lu Weiqi took out a sparse slip from his sleeve and hurriedly handed it to Zhang Shundao. .

"Oh?" Zhang Shun opened it and took a quick look, and immediately understood what was going on.

It turns out that there were two routes to Tibet in this era. One was through Long'an Prefecture in Sichuan, passing through the Songpan Military and Civilian Command and Envoy Division and heading west to the original Duogandu Command and Envoy Station.

The other route is to go through Lintao Prefecture, pass through Hezhou and Guide Qianhu Station, and go south along the Yellow River Valley to the original Duogandu Command and Envoy Station.

This Hezhou is the gateway from Shaanxi to Tibet, and it is also an important node for the tea and horse trade.

In history, one of the three major institutions for managing Tibet in the Yuan Dynasty, the Marshal Sidu Mansion of the Tubo and other places was set up here. Later, after Deng Yu, the Duke of Hongwu, conquered Hezhou in the third year of Hongwu, "the day of the arrival of the chieftain", "You may surrender your old position in Yuan Dynasty, or you may lead your troops to return to your life."

Now the rebels have occupied Hezhou, but because Zhang Shun did not lead the army to threaten them, these people pretended to be deaf and dumb and continued to hold Ming official posts without submitting their orders.

"This matter will be discussed later, let's talk about disaster relief!" Zhang Shun thought about it for a long time and couldn't help but bring the topic back.

This is a big matter, involving not only the Hehuang land, but also the control of Gansu and the issue of the Han nationality in the border areas.

Only by using force as the backing and using people who are familiar with the people of the Han Dynasty as generals can we completely solve these two hidden dangers in one fell swoop.

"What about the distribution of relief grains in Hezhou?" Lu Weiqi asked involuntarily.

Since the relationship between ourselves and the enemy cannot be determined now, it is naturally impossible to formulate corresponding countermeasures.

"Relief is naturally to help our own people. The chieftain of the Ming Dynasty suffered a disaster, what does it have to do with me?" Zhang Shun couldn't help but sneered.

As the saying goes, "fear of power but not morality", now that the rebels don't have enough food to eat, how can I have the leisure to care about them?

"This doesn't seem very benevolent and is not conducive to winning over other people." Lu Weiqi couldn't help but remind him.

"No need!" Zhang Shun waved his hand and said, "Be kind to yourself and use force to the enemy. There is a difference between inside and outside!"

"Being benevolent to your enemies and imposing threats on yourself is called internal cruelty and external forbearance, which is not the virtue of a king!"

My name is King Shun, not the Holy Mother. Why are you so excited?

Well, you are the monarch and you have the final say!

Lu Weiqi shook his head helplessly, and couldn't help but ask for instructions: "Originally, the Xi'an government planned to collect grain tax, and Zili could collect more than 1.07 million shi. In fact, the grain tax collected was more than 315,000 shi, and Zili could collect 500,000 shi. , plus Zhang Sanbai’s purchase of 300,000 shi, the actual income is 1.11 million shi.”

"Either the 300,000 to 50,000 shi of grain tax does not match the fish scale register, or the farmers have fled and cannot be collected."

"There are still 220,000 shi left in the grain. Some have issued IOUs and will make up for it during the autumn harvest; some refuse to pay, and they need to be forcibly collected one by one."

"Now Yulin Town military pay needs 210,000 dan by the end of the year, Yan'an Prefecture needs 200,000 dan for disaster relief, and other military pay needs 450,000 dan."

"Disaster relief in Lanzhou, Hezhou and Didao County also requires 30,000 to 50,000 shi, as well as various transportation, which consumes 150,000 shi on the road."

"Officials give out more than 100,000 dan in salary, but in fact they will still lose 50,000 dan by the end of the year."

"As for army training, armor, weapons and equipment and other related matters, we can only spend the rebel silver."

"Since King Shun entered the customs, he has confiscated more than 1.53 million taels of property from the Qin, Han, and Qing dynasties. Among them, the property and property of the Su dynasty have been left at the disposal of Zhang Yingchen, the governor of Gansu, and have not been reported."

"Among them, 400,000 taels were spent on grain purchases, 230,000 taels were spent on building armor and weapons by Wang Zheng and Zhang Dudu, and nearly 100,000 taels were spent on daily training."

"The rebel army spent another 30,000 taels of silver reward, and now only 700,000 taels are left."

"If the autumn grain collection continues unsatisfactory, I'm afraid that the rebel army will be trapped in Shaanxi despite its large number of soldiers and horses!"

What's the meaning?

In fact, Lu Weiqi was telling Zhang Shun tactfully that Shaanxi simply couldn't raise so many soldiers, so you should find a way quickly.

The reason why we were able to survive this year was because we confiscated the properties of the princes' palaces and subsidized 830,000 grains of silver, so we could barely break even.

But what to do after the New Year? The soldiers and the common people are crying for food, and the officials and generals are waiting for their salaries. How can we increase revenue and reduce expenditure?

Agricultural societies were completely different from later industrial societies.

There is a time to harvest grain in a year, and there is a fixed number of acres of land in the world. No matter how you encourage and stimulate, the actual output has an upper limit.

The original upper limit has been reduced to a terrible low due to natural and man-made disasters.

As a result, in the past two years, Zhang Shun's chaotic wars, coupled with the "food war" and chaotic purchases, caused the world's food prices to completely go wild.

Nowadays, not only the price of food in Houjin and the capital has soared, but also the food purchase by the rebels has been affected to a certain extent.

If we continue to think of a solution, I am afraid that next year the hungry people of Shaanxi will revolt against the rule of the rebels.

"It doesn't matter!" Zhang Shun waved his hand and said, "Now that the Xi'an Prefecture's farmland has been almost cleaned up, leave the execution to Xu Quan!"

"I am going to transfer Zhang Bojing and Li Zicheng to Yan'an, Qingyang and Suide to clean up the farmland."

"These three areas have almost 30,000 hectares, which can collect almost 400,000 dan, which is enough for Yulin."

"Besides, there are quite a lot of farmland in Ningxia and Guyuan towns. We can clean them up one by one!"

"I still don't believe that Shaanxi can't support 200,000 elite soldiers!"