My Pen Pal Zhu Yuanzhang

Chapter 344 The Consequences of Serious Problems in the Distribution System

"However, after sixty-nine years of existence, this behemoth that once made the whole world tremble has collapsed and ceased to exist!"

Sixty-nine years?

Zhu Yuanzhang stared at these words. It’s only been sixty-nine years, less than seventy years. How... is this possible?

How could a vast empire that he believed had an almost perfect system only exist for a mere sixty-nine years?
No, no, something else must have happened, an invasion by foreign enemies or a severe flood?
He couldn't help but think of what Li Han mentioned. In the late Ming Dynasty, due to a series of floods that had not been seen in a century caused by the Little Ice Age, famine was rampant and refugees were everywhere. Eventually, under internal and external troubles, the Ming Dynasty was replaced by the Jurchens.

But, didn't we already have high-yield crops like potatoes and sweet potatoes six hundred years later? Logically, we should have been able to cope with the Little Ice Age, right?

Speaking of foreign invasions, in the world six hundred years later, as Lao Li said, China was extremely powerful. In addition, there was another powerful country, what was it called, America?

Could it be destroyed by China or America?
This is very possible, Zhu Yuanzhang thought, and then continued to look at the letter. He was eager to get an answer.

"The demise of a regime is due to two reasons: external troubles and internal troubles. From the perspective of external troubles, it has to face two giants, China and the United States, at the same time."

As expected, Zhu Yuanzhang finally remembered who this regime Li Han was talking about was.

That one with a particularly weird name, what’s it called? Oh, by the way, what’s the Su Alliance?

The world situation at that time was in a state of Cold War, and the entire world was in a situation of three countries standing side by side.

However, since it was a Cold War, it meant that no direct war had occurred, because as Lao Li said, the three countries all possessed the world-destroying hydrogen bomb, and no one dared to act rashly. All the countries could do was to scare each other.

Since there was no powerful enemy invading, how could it collapse so suddenly? The only explanation can only be internal trouble.

“Speaking of internal troubles, in fact, before the collapse of this regime, there were no natural disasters that could affect the entire country. Although there was not a bumper harvest every year, judging by the grain output, there was no shortage of food per capita.

Moreover, this country's industrial strength has always been ranked second in the world. Some of its technologies even surpassed the United States, the world's top power at the time, and far surpassed China at the time.

The size of the military is the largest in the world, and the strength of the military industry has developed to an astonishing level.

Let me give you a more intuitive example, and you will know how strong the country's industrial strength is.

How much steel does Daming produce per month now? Can it reach tens of thousands of tons?"

If you ask this question...

Zhu Yuanzhang thought about it and realized that assembly line production has now been maturely applied in production. If all the factories in Yingtian Prefecture are counted together, the output should be able to reach tens of thousands of tons a month.

After all, shipbuilding requires a lot of steel, so the scale of the steel mills in the industrial zone is quite large.

However, except for Yingtian Prefecture, the steel production in other places can only be described as better than nothing, probably only a few hundred or a thousand tons. "Let's put it this way, before the collapse of this country, the monthly output of any steel plant could easily exceed 100,000 tons, and the national average monthly output was more than 11 million tons.

In the ten years before the collapse, the annual steel output exceeded 100 million tons, ranking first in the world every year. "

Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes widened. With such a terrifying steel output, even if he ate steel as his meals every day, he would not be able to finish it!
He also understood what Lao Li meant, that is, before the disintegration and collapse of this country, its industrial production was actually in a normal state, and even in an advantageous position compared to other countries.

Then why did it collapse suddenly?
"But in the years before the collapse, the country suffered from food shortages, and many ordinary people sometimes couldn't even buy food with money.

With normal industrial and agricultural production, rising output, and no all-out war, this country has actually introduced a food rationing system that is only seen during wartime!"

How can this be?

Zhu Yuanzhang was so shocked that he stood up from his seat and paced back and forth in the imperial study. He really couldn't understand how this situation came about!
Food rationing system. Although this was the first time Zhu Yuanzhang saw the term, he could understand what it meant.

And he understands it extremely deeply because he has experienced it himself many times!

In years of natural disasters, the government would set up porridge shops to provide food rationing. When a city was besieged by a large army, the defenders would collect the food from all the people in the city and distribute it according to quotas, which was also food rationing.

When Chen Youliang besieged Jiangning, he implemented food rationing in the city and executed several unscrupulous wealthy businessmen who tried to hoard food.

Later, it was Empress Ma who took out all her gold and silk to reward the army, which stabilized the military morale and laid the foundation for defeating Chen Youliang.

But how could a country that was not short of food and had such terrifying industrial production capacity implement a food rationing system?
Could it be that someone is hoarding grain to make a profit from it? That shouldn't be the case. Not to mention that grain is not scarce, it cannot be sold at a high price if hoarded. Moreover, as Lao Li said, this country eliminated the landlord class at the beginning of its establishment. If anyone dared to hoard grain, he would have been destroyed by the court at the first opportunity.

More importantly, this country practices a planned economy, which means that the distribution of food is also based on planning. How could there be a food shortage?

I can’t figure it out, I really can’t figure it out. Everything seems too abnormal. It doesn’t make sense!
According to Zhu Yuanzhang's own understanding of why a country or a dynasty would perish, it was either due to invasion by a powerful enemy, such as the wealthy Song Dynasty, which was destroyed by the Jin and Yuan Dynasties.

Or the emperor was cruel, incompetent, and imposed many heavy taxes, like Qin II.

Either there was serious land annexation, external relatives interfering in politics, or warlords were fighting for power, the imperial power was in name only, and coupled with various natural and man-made disasters, the people were living in misery, such as the end of the Han Dynasty and the end of the Tang Dynasty.

“Of course, food shortage is only one of the more obvious problems that arose before the collapse of this regime. In fact, it is not only food, but other daily necessities have also experienced varying degrees of shortage.

Then you, Lao Zhu, should ask, why would a country with such strong industrial strength, a country whose grain production has not decreased, have these problems, and even eventually perished without any foreign invasion? Why?
In fact, you may not believe the reason, because this country's basic distribution system, the allocation of production resources and living resources, has major problems!"

Wait, this country practices a planned economy, and all production and distribution are run according to plans. Lao Li said so much, but in fact he was telling himself that the planned economy is not feasible?

However, it is obvious that this country has become a world hegemon by relying on the centralized planned production model!
Zhu Yuanzhang became more and more confused.

(End of this chapter)