The Young and Vigorous Eighth Prince

"But... Your Highness, with so many victims, just one day's wages and food may be too much..." Xia Qianxing looked at Jiang Fan hesitantly. He still felt that this was unreal.

The other officials were also dumbfounded. As for the several recorders, they were completely stunned. They were also shocked by Jiang Fan's actions.

Recruiting 60,000 people at once, is this prince crazy? Not to mention how many of them can work, even if they can work, he can't afford to support them.

Even if he had a million taels of silver in his hand, I'm afraid he wouldn't be able to afford such consumption.

You have to know that buying food in Huaining for 60,000 people might cost more than 100,000 taels a day, not counting the wages.

Moreover, the criterion for winning or losing the gambling game is not as simple as spending money to support the people, but to actually solve their livelihoods and actually lower the price of grain. Solve the problem of banditry.

If Jiang Fan does this, not only will his money be wasted, but he won't even be able to win the bet.

Jiang Fan looked at Xia Qianxing and nodded.

"You don't have to worry about that. Before noon, I hope you can recruit people and distribute them according to male, female, old, young, and weak. Register their occupations and organize all kinds of craftsmen. I will come to receive them later. You'd better notify each of the six disaster relief points."

Upon hearing this, Xia Qianxing said nothing more, nodded and left.

He felt touched in his heart, he knew that Jiang Fan was helping him.

The less immoral things he did, the greater his chances of surviving when Jiang Fan pleaded for him.

Once there are jobs and food, there will be very few people who will actually stay to eat the relief food, and the issue of relief food will naturally be solved.

Those fake disaster victims must be mentally deficient to come here to suffer. If these people were really deficient, he wouldn't mind forcing them to eat inedible porridge every day.

Xia Qianxing quickly implemented Jiang Fan's method at various disaster relief sites, although those fake disaster victims who wanted to cause trouble wanted to take the opportunity to cause trouble.

Xia Qianxing caught the people who were making the most trouble and beheaded them on the spot.

Now, those troublemakers were so frightened that they trembled with fear and became quiet.

They were miserably forced by Xia Qianxing to eat a bowl of inedible porridge.

Moreover, in order to discipline these people, Xia Qianxing added some ingredients to the porridge they ate. It was specially prepared for these people, and it contained something called Mi Tian Gong.

These people eat to their heart's content, but they have to eat. A knife is on their necks, and it doesn't matter whether you eat or not. If you don't eat, they will chop you off.

Then they vomited so much that their stomachs ached, and finally, they all ran away in shame.

After getting such a result, Xia Qianxing admired Jiang Fan very much. Although this was a bit unethical, at least the problem was solved.

The problem was solved, and Xia Qianxing announced the recruitment according to Jiang Fan's instructions.

When the people heard that there was work to be done, almost everyone signed up. The truth was that although the porridge was filling, it was hard to swallow.

In addition, since there was pay, even the elderly, the weak, women and children signed up.

Xia Qianxing went to each of the disaster relief sites, registered the victims who had signed up, and sorted them into different categories.

While he was busy here, Jiang Fan took the Chu brothers to visit the surrounding hills of Huaining Prefecture.

The places he visited were a poisonous salt mountain, a coal mountain, a limestone mountain, and finally a sulfur vein in Huaining County.

Jiang Fan had studied the geography and topography of Huaining County. The poisonous salt mountain and sulfur mountain were marked, but the records of the coal mountain and limestone mountain were vague.

In fact, in this era, no one knew the importance of coal and limestone, and no one mined them.

Therefore, Jiang Fan was not sure. After he personally investigated, he saw that it was indeed a coal mine and a limestone mine, and his face was filled with joy.

If these things exist, then his plan can be implemented.

When he returned to Huaining City, his face was still full of smiles. The Chu brothers who followed him were confused. They didn't understand why Jiang Fan was smiling like a fool after seeing a pile of black and gray stones.

The recorder who followed him also frowned and remained speechless, wondering if the Eighth Prince had gone insane.

What they couldn't understand the most was that Jiang Fan didn't want to go to suppress bandits. As soon as he arrived in Huaining, he wanted to support the people. He also ran to some remote places to look at stones. What on earth did he want to do?

While the accompanying recorders were puzzled, Jiang Fan returned to Huaining County. As soon as he arrived at the county government office, he saw the grain carts lined up in front of the county government office, as well as the white-robed guards who had just completed the escort mission.

The four recorders were stunned and looked at Jiang Fan. Only then did they realize that Jiang Fan had bought a lot of food without realizing it.

But when they thought about Jiang Fan using food to feed the people, the four of them felt that Jiang Fan's approach was really unacceptable.

But since they were the recorders, they couldn't say anything and could only record everything Jiang Fan did.

After returning to the residence arranged by the county government, Jiang Fan met with Niu Wu alone.

"Your Highness, I have collected 30,000 dan of grain this time. 10,000 dan have been delivered in advance, and another 20,000 dan will be delivered in three days. Zhou Zheng, Hu Chongwu, Zhao Feng and others have also collected tens of thousands of dan of grain each, and they will be delivered in the next few days."

Jiang Fan nodded in satisfaction after hearing this. Niu Wu and his men were indeed the ones he had chosen. They had purchased so much food in just a few days. He needed food right now.

"Oh, Your Highness, because we are transporting grain to Huaining, and because of the news we spread, many grain merchants think we want to take advantage of the rising grain prices in Huainan to make a lot of money. Therefore, many grain merchants in the surrounding prefectures have begun to transport grain here. In about seven days, at least dozens or even hundreds of grain merchants will transport grain here."

Jiang Fan looked slightly happy. His layout was beginning to show results. If things went well, it would only take ten days to bring down the grain prices.

However, before that, he had to resolve the bandit problem in Huaining Prefecture within three days. Otherwise, as long as one grain merchant got into trouble, subsequent grain merchants would definitely not dare to come.

Even if the benefits are huge, not many people are willing to risk their lives.

"Okay...you continue to lead the two hundred guards to support Zhou Zheng and the others..." Jiang Fan nodded and said to Niu Wu.

After sending Niu Wu away, Jiang Fan happened to meet Xia Qianxing who was rushing over in a hurry.

When he saw the grain carts in the yard and the grain being transported to the government office warehouse, a look of joy appeared on his face.

"Your Highness, I would like to thank you on behalf of the victims of Huaining..." He bowed respectfully to Jiang Fan. With a worried look on his face, he said:

"However, Your Highness, I'm afraid that your way of supplying the people is not a long-term solution. Your Highness, why don't you borrow the name of the court to recruit civilians to build river embankments. This way, you can ensure that the people have food to eat, and you can also guarantee their livelihood for at least nearly a year."

"That way, Your Highness won't have to spend... your own money!"

Upon hearing this, Jiang Fan looked at Xia Qianxing deeply. This guy was quite capable. He could actually think of using the idea of ​​building river embankments to provide livelihood for the people.

However, he would not do this because Jiang Fan believed that Chu Yan'er would do this. If he did it himself, although the impact would not be significant, it would make people think that he was imitating Chu Yan'er.

Moreover, recruiting people to build riverbanks can only solve the livelihood of the people for about a year. Of course, the people who have land can go back to farming.

But what about the people without land? Will they continue to be tenant farmers, or will they be unable to find a landlord to rent land to and continue to starve to death?