On July 28, Changshe County Magistrate Wang Rui sent someone to report to Xuchang, saying that there seemed to be groups of refugees from Henan County in the county.

On July 30, Wang Rui sent someone to report to Xuchang again, confirming that there were more than 1,000 refugees in Henan County.

On the third day of August, Wang Rui sent someone to report to Xuchang for the third time, saying that the number of refugees in Henan County in Changshe County is gradually increasing, and has increased to nearly 3,000.

On the same day, the Henan County Magistrate Zhang Jian sent someone to beg for help from Yingchuan County.

The envoy came to the county magistrate's office and asked to meet the county magistrate Chen Lang.

When it comes to neighboring counties, Chen Lang naturally did not dare to make decisions without authorization, so he went to the rear palace to ask the governor of County Li.

"Henan County wants to borrow food?"

After learning about the whole story from Chen Lang, County Governor Li also felt a headache. After all, Yingchuan County was short of food.

He asked Chen Lang: "How much food is left in the city?"

Chen Lang said hesitantly: "Now what we eat in the city is already the old grain accumulated in the cellar, and there are probably 50,000 or 60,000 stones..."

"That's all left?"

County Governor Li asked with a frown.

You should know that for a city with as many as 10,000 households, a mere 50,000 or 60,000 shi can only last for one month at most.

Seeing that Li Junmai frowned, Chen Lang hurriedly said, "Don't worry, there is a merchant named 'Chen Hu' in the city who is convincing the wealthy families in the city to sell the remaining grain on the market to help the government stabilize the grain prices..."

"This is a visionary."

Junjun Li nodded and asked again: "What is the price of rice in the city now?"

Chen Lang hesitated for a moment and whispered: "It has increased to 360 coins per stone."

Hearing this, County Magistrate Li frowned deeply, and he said in a deep voice: "You go and contact this Chen Hu, negotiate with the wealthy families in the city in the name of the government, and ask each family to lend the remaining grain to the government and return it after the autumn harvest... In addition, ask officials from all over the city to set an example and lend the remaining grain to the government or flow into the market. Be sure to keep the rice price below 350 yuan. If someone hoards grain during the period, he will be severely punished!"

"Affect the order."

Chen Lang hugged his fists and asked again: "There is Lord Zhang Jian from Henan County..."

County Governor Li sighed melancholy and said, "You wrote him a letter in my name, and just say that I, Yingchuan County, can do nothing. At least I have to wait until the autumn harvest before I can squeeze out some of the grain to reinforce Henan..."

Speaking of this, he seemed to have thought of something and instructed Chen Lang: "Have you ever sent someone to Kunyang, Runan, Xiangcheng and Yangdi counties to estimate the harvest?"

Chen Lang bowed and said, "Don't worry, a few days ago, I'd sent Chief Cui Zhi to the four counties with several land officials."

"That's good."

County Magistrate Li nodded, and then seemed to have thought of something again, and said again: "When you go back, remember to tell Zhou Hu, telling him to be sure to keep the farmlands in the three counties of Kunyang and not be destroyed by the rebels..."

Chen Lang immediately comforted: "Don't worry, sir, there are eight thousand soldiers guarding Kunyang."

However, County Governor Li was still full of concern. After all, as far as he knew, there were tens of thousands of rebels in Ye County.

After saying goodbye to the governor of Li County, Chen Lang went to the Duwei Office in person and talked with Zhao Yu about the issue of food.

Only then did Zhao Yu realize that County Governor Li donated a thousand stones of rice to the government.

Some people may say that Li Min, as a county magistrate and a prince from the Li family, must have the privilege of "fair fief". Now Xuchang is in a difficult situation of food shortage and only donated 1,000 stones of rice, which is stingy.

But in reality, who would stock up tens of thousands of stones of rice without any trouble, and at most, it would stock up to enough food for everyone in the mansion to eat for a year or two. Just like Zhao Yu's commander Cao's mansion, the mansion now has only 600 stones of rice, which is not as much as the governor of County Li donated.

The rest of the wealth and jewelry cannot be eaten as food.

In view of this, Zhao Yu also nodded secretly: The governor Li Jun is still a good person.

Just as Zhao Yu was chatting with Chen Lang, Gongcao Army Xun Yi hurried to Zhao Yu's house. Seeing Chen Lang, a hint of surprise flashed across his face and said happily: "Mr. Chen is here too? It's great, so I won't go to the county magistrate's office."

Hearing this, Zhao Yu and Chen Lang felt a little strange.

Seeing this, Xun Yi sighed: "There are more and more hungry people in the city..."

This is not surprising. Xuchang was attacked by rebels last year, and at the beginning of this year, he was surrounded by rebels again. This caused many people in the city to lose their livelihoods. Except for a few, they could barely make a living. Most of the others either sold their belongings for money or went to eat military rations. This is also the reason why Xuchang was able to recruit more than 40,000 county soldiers in the past and afterwards.

The problem is that by selling the goods from the family for money to buy rice, it will not last long. Although joining the army can support the family with military pay when they are alive, after they die in battle, they will not last long with the pension issued by the government.

So, over time, more and more people in the city gradually could not afford the rice price as high as 350 qian per stone, which led to more and more hungry people.

However, Zhao Yu had long expected this. He asked Xun Yi and Chen Zu to form a "brotherhood" in Xuchang City, not entirely to expand his power to Xuchang. On the other hand, he also wanted to use the brotherhood to allow these hungry people to eat a big pot of rice and not starve to death.

Take Kunyang for example. Kunyang's situation was not as optimistic as Xuchang, but it didn't starve to death because the county government burdened all the people in the county, and the condition was that these people had to work in those workshops.

"The price of grain remains high. If this continues, there will be more and more hungry people in the city, and the brothers will not be able to afford it..."

As he said that, Xun Yi turned to look at Chen Lang and suggested: "Mr. Chen, why don't we try to learn from Kunyang's approach?"

Of course, Chen Lang knew what Kunyang was doing.

Kunyang's approach is that the whole county is working for the county government, and the county government is responsible for the food rations of all county residents.

Although the rice price on Kunyang is as high as 350 yuan, it has almost no impact on the people of the county because they have food and will not buy it.

This led to the closing of rice shops in Kunyang, and eventually the county government did not allow grain to flow out of the county and was forcibly seized, so that the rice merchants could only sell them to the county government and go to other places to make a living. If they were not sold and wanted to secretly take them away, the strong men with black scarves tied on their heads would immediately visit them with gifts such as swords and guns.

"I have considered this matter too..."

After hearing Xun Yi's words, Chen Lang glanced at Zhao Yu and said embarrassedly: "But at that time, there were only 50,000 or 60,000 people in Kunyang, and 30% of them were military soldiers. In Xuchang, there were more than 100,000 people. Even now, the population is more than 80,000. If Kunyang is imitated, the government will not have enough food at all..."

"The big households in the city have food." Xun Yi said with a calm face.

Seeing that his tone was a little abnormal, Zhao Yu asked strangely: "Song Jun, is it not going well?"

"Um."

Xun Yi said with a calm face: "There are several aristocratic families and merchants who are friends with Chen Hu, Chen, Lao Jia, who are willing to borrow a sum of grain to the government. But the rest, there are thousands or even thousands of grains in the cellars in their mansion, but they just refuse to borrow them. What to say to deal with the accident. I really want to send someone to steal him..."

“…”

Chen Lang glanced at Xun Yi in shock.

Xun Yi in his impression would not say such words.

Just when he was surprised, Zhao Yu smiled and said, "That's easy. I'll call Liu Tu to help you. He has five hundred people under him."

Before Xun Yi could speak, Chen Lang panicked and quickly dissuaded.

He knew that this Zhou Duwei could really do it.

He hurriedly said, "The commander is angry, joining the army to calm down. This is fine. I will think of a solution for this matter. In addition, I will ask the county magistrate's office to allocate a batch of grain to the brotherhood... It is August now, and as long as you wait for another month, wait for the four counties of Kunyang and Yangdi to collect grain, I believe this situation will change."

"……All right."

Xun Yi breathed a long sigh, obviously what he said just now was also an angry word.

On the ninth day of the eighth month, the county magistrate Cui Zhi, with the assistance of the county governments of Kunyang, Runan and Xiangcheng, roughly estimated the harvest status of the three counties this year.

To be fair, the counties of Xiangcheng and Runan are not large, and the counties are not large, so there are naturally not too many arable land. The former has 180,000 mu, while the latter has a little more, which is about 200,000 mu.

Compared with the two counties, Kunyang County originally had a smaller arable land area. It was not until last year to this year that Zhao Yu ordered the Reclamation Army to reclaim nearly 70% of the new land, and it caught up with the two counties, which was about 230,000 mu.

The three counties have a total of 600,000 mu.

And how much grain can these 600,000 mu of land produce?

A thin field is less than one stone per acre, and a rich field may have two stones. According to conservative estimates, the grain production ranges from 600,000 to 900,000 stones, and 700,000 stones will be obtained from the discount.

A few days later, the county magistrate, Cui Zhi, went to Yangdi and inspected the local farmland conditions.

Yangdi is different from small counties such as Kunyang and Runan. It is one of the few large counties in Yingchuan County. It has a farmland area of ​​more than 300,000 mu. This year, it has been lucky enough to have not been harassed or damaged by the rebels. Even if it is conservatively estimated, it can harvest about 400,000 stones.

The combined grain production of these four counties is almost less than 1.2 million stones.

Although the government of Yingchuan County can only harvest half of the land rent, that is, 600,000 stones, as long as this batch of grain is not lost to other counties, this one.2 million stone of grain can be eaten by 600,000 or 700,000 people for a year, which will feed about two-thirds of the population of Yingchuan County.

What should I do if the remaining one-third of the population is?

Isn't there any rebels?

You should know that one-third of Yingchuan County's land fell into the hands of rebels, such as Yanling, Zhaoling, Dingling, Linying, etc. Although the rebels are rebellious troops, they will not starve the people of these counties to death. After all, this is also related to the reputation of the rebels.

In other words, as long as several counties in Yingchuan County can safely survive the autumn harvest, the county military and the rebels will not fight. The grain production in Yingchuan County can basically meet their own needs and may have a slight surplus - after all, these numbers are just conservative estimates.

This is a very gratifying achievement for a county that has delayed the farming work of nearly one-third of the county towns. Even after learning about this, County Magistrate Li breathed a sigh of relief. [PS: These numbers make my head hurt, and I won’t want to forget it if I don’t need it in the future.]

Finally, just as the surplus grain in Xuchang City was almost exhausted, Yingchuan County was about to usher in the autumn harvest.

This also made the relationship between the various county troops, county troops and rebels in Yingchuan County tense.
Chapter completed!