Travel to the early Tang Dynasty and become a salted fish

"There was a severe drought in Guanzhong before. We received the Holy Spirit's decree and opened warehouses to provide disaster relief. Almost all the food in the treasury was used to relieve the victims."

"Now that the autumn grain has not been harvested, the frost disaster has come, and there is no time for us to replenish the treasury. How can we get food and grass?"

"What's more, these two major disasters have also affected surrounding cities and towns one after another. The food road from the south to here has also been blocked. Food cannot be transported in a short time. Now that we have too much time to take care of ourselves, where can we get it? Produce food and grass to supply the army and provide relief to the victims."

"Master Qu is already ill, and his condition has worsened recently because he was worried about the disaster. Please forgive me, Mr. Lu."

After Chu Xiang finished speaking, he bent down and bowed deeply to Cheng Yaojin.

When the other officials around him saw this, they also followed suit and saluted Cheng Yaojin.

Seeing that no one seemed to be cheating, Cheng Yaojin also started to get into trouble.

I came here to collect food and grass under the emperor's order. I didn't even ask for a grain of rice. Now I still have to find a way to deal with the refugees outside the city.

When he thought of this, Cheng Yaojin felt like he was one head above the other.

Forget it, since you can't solve it yourself, then find someone who can.

As a result, Li Shimin received a second urgent message from Cheng Yaojin.

Li Shimin was immediately laughed out loud when he saw that it said that Luoyang City was not only unable to produce a single grain of food, but was even asking the court for food to help the victims.

After directly handing over the command of the Chinese army to Du Ruhui, he led 300 Xuanjia troops and headed straight for Luoyang City with light equipment and speed.

Arriving at the gate of Luoyang City, Li Shimin took out his waist card, entered the city smoothly, and went straight to the Governor's Mansion.

When he saw Qu Tutong, who was already seriously ill, all the anger along the way turned into regret.

He was originally here to ask questions, but now he couldn't even say a word of blame. He sighed and said to Chu Xiang:

"You are the governor of the governor's office. You should know the situation in the city in detail. Please tell me carefully."

At first, everyone did not expect that Li Shimin would come in person, and they were all shocked.

Now calm down and listen to the other party's intention, this is about to check the account.

Therefore, Chu Xiang immediately ordered people to fetch the account books from the mansion for Li Shimin to review.

When Li Shimin saw the huge amount of food expenditures in the accounts, he felt something was wrong, but after seeing the number of victims later relief, he felt it was excusable.

Later, when he saw that there was zero grain in the treasury, he slammed the account book in his hand on Chu Xiang and cursed:

"There is no food and grass in the treasury, why don't we report and replenish it in time? Now, there are 10,000+ victims outside the city waiting for relief, and you just watch?"

Seeing Li Shimin's anger, Chu Xiang hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed to beg for mercy.

Qu Tutong on the side also struggled to kneel down and plead for mercy.

Seeing Qu Tutong's behavior, Li Shimin restrained his anger, then waved his hand and said: "You don't have to be like this, Duke Jiang. I don't blame you. I just didn't expect that the current situation in Luoyang City would be so corrupt."

With a sigh, Li Shimin looked at Chu Xiang on the ground fiercely and said:

"Tell me, why didn't you replenish the treasury in time? The drought has been going on for several months, and not a single grain of grain has been replenished. Now, all the last grains are being used to help the victims. If I didn't come this time, wouldn't it be wrong? You have to wait until Luoyang City falls before you report this matter?"

"Cough cough cough..." Qu Tutong coughed suddenly, attracting everyone's attention.

"Your Majesty, this matter is all the fault of the veteran and has nothing to do with anyone else."

After Qu Tutong said this sentence with difficulty, he coughed again.

Seeing the other party like this, Li Shimin sighed fiercely, then looked at Chu Xiang sharply and said:

"Tell me the truth."

Chu Xiang wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and then spoke eloquently.

It turns out that during a severe drought in Guanzhong, Luoyang City was ordered to open warehouses to release grain and provide relief to the surrounding victims.

As the disaster gradually passed, the food in the treasury gradually bottomed out.

Qu Tutong also reported to the court several times, hoping that the court would allocate funds to replenish the government's grain inventory.

However, at that time, the imperial court had just recovered its strength, and there was no money left to allocate them to replenish the treasury.

Secondly, due to drought problems in various places, food prices have remained high. Ministers in the DPRK believed that it was unwise to buy food at high prices to replenish the government treasury at this time.

Therefore, the matter was delayed again and again. Seeing that the autumn harvest was approaching, the matter was shelved directly. The courtiers thought of waiting until after the autumn harvest to see how the harvest was in various places before making plans.

Unfortunately, before the autumn harvest even started, a rare frost occurred that occurred once in a century. Not only did the crops fail, but the best time to replenish the treasury was missed.

After listening to Chu Xiang's narration, Li Shimin's eyebrows almost stood up in anger.

Just when he was about to curse a few times to vent his anger, he suddenly remembered that officials from the Ministry of Revenue had indeed proposed replenishing the treasury before.

But it seems that at that time, I followed Chu Mo to mess up the bank and spent all the money on it. I couldn't spare any more money to consider the matter, so I just put it aside.

Later, when I made money, I seemed to forget about this matter.

Remembering that he was the one who was responsible, Li Shimin blushed, coughed a few times, and tried his best to cover up the matter.

"Well, I still know the ins and outs of this matter. Although you are not at fault for this matter, you are also guilty of poor supervision."

"Forget it this time. I understand that Duke Jiang has worked hard for the country and I will not punish you for your crime. But if there is a next time, I will definitely punish you severely."

After speaking, Li Shimin winked at the stunned Cheng Yaojin, and then strode out of the Governor's Mansion.

After the two returned to the camp outside the city, Li Shimin directly ordered Cheng Yaojin to leave enough food and grass for five days and save all the food and grass to help the victims.

Cheng Yaojin, on the other hand, led the vanguard and continued to move quickly to the next place to collect grain and grass.

If the next episode is the same as this one, just ignore it and move on.

Then, he sent a message to Chang'an, ordering Li Chengqian to find Chu Mo to continue gathering grain, grass and relief materials and deliver them quickly.

After issuing several orders, Li Shimin looked at the refugees wandering outside the city and felt a little strange.

Then he shook his head, smiled self-deprecatingly, mounted his horse, and returned directly to the central army.

After Li Shimin left, Cheng Yaojin didn't want to stay any longer.

It was really unbearable to be surrounded by those refugees.

Despite the fact that the refugees were starved of food and clothing, they seemed to be in good spirits. Even if they gathered around the military camp and asked when relief food would be distributed, they could not be driven away no matter how hard they tried.

They were all people of the Tang Dynasty, so Cheng Yaojin couldn't order them to be killed on the spot.

Now seeing that the emperor Li Shimin has run away, and he has also received orders, he naturally does not want to stay here anymore.

He immediately ordered his sergeants to leave some food, and then followed Li Shimin's example and ran away.