I want to ruin the country

The people are starving now. As the court, we should solve as much of the problem as we can and try our best to find a way to do it.

Mu Zhang'a meant that there was no need to make a fuss. It has been like this every year. Just lie down and let it go!

If you can survive it is your ability, if you can't survive it is fate. What the hell is this!

Duan Hua said angrily,

"I disagree with Lord Mu Zhang'a's statement. The court should formulate a strategy as soon as possible and come up with practical solutions. If we can save one person, it's one person. If we can save ten people, it's ten. We must not sit idly by!"

Senglinqin said,

"Lord Duanhua is saying this lightly. Everyone understands the current situation of the imperial court. The Ministry of Revenue has no money at all. How can we provide disaster relief?"

Zaiquan said,

"Relief is necessary. We can follow the example of the past and provide porridge first to prevent the people from starving to death. Then we can slowly find a solution. In three months, the summer crops will be ripe, and the spring panic will be over!"

Although Zaiquan didn't say to lie down and give up, it wasn't much better. What he meant was to make some bland food to fool the people. The court has done what it should do, and whether you can survive depends on your luck!

Yining gave him a bad review in his heart, thinking that he was just speaking for the sake of speaking and it didn't have much practical significance.

When Du Shoutian heard someone start talking nonsense, he became anxious. If this continued, he didn't know when they would be able to come up with a solution. He said,

"Your Majesty, the people can't wait. I suggest opening the government warehouses to distribute grain and porridge first. We can't just leave the food there and watch the people starve to death!"

When Mu Zhang'a heard that the government warehouse was going to be opened, he hurriedly said,

"Absolutely not! It's not even the end of the first lunar month yet, and we haven't really hit the lean period yet. The government warehouses have limited food reserves, so we have to wait until the last resort to open the warehouses and provide relief!"

Yining looked at him. Why did he react so strongly when he heard about opening the government granary to release grain?

Then I heard Zaiyuan say,

"It's better to open the granary early than late. Lord Du said that the people are already out of food. If we don't release grain, every household will be in poverty and every family will have a funeral. What's the point of opening the granary at that time?"

Mu Zhang'a said,

"Those who starved to death were all old, frail, and sick. They were a burden to their families when they were alive, so what if they died?"

Yining cursed in his heart, fuck your grandma, you deserve to starve to death at your age!

Wen Qing looked at Mu Zhang'a with a strange look and said,

"Master Zaiyuan is right. The sooner we open the gates, the sooner we can save people. If we can save as many people as possible, we can find a way out. It's not a good idea to store food and watch people starve to death."

The monks in the forest said,

"Your Majesty, I have no objection to opening the granaries, but I just want to leave enough food for the army. Otherwise, if there's a war, the soldiers will starve!"

Although Senglinqin had selfish motives, what he said made sense. Which country would dare to touch its war reserve food?

What no one expected was that Yining dared to move because he knew there was no war recently.

Historically, even Senglin had to wait until September to go to Miyun to suppress bandits. By then, the autumn crops had already been harvested, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

After returning from Pingxi Prefecture, Yining pondered how to solve the problem of the gap between food and harvest in the spring.

This is not as simple as providing relief to Old Man Liu and Wang Yujin's two families. There are 450 million people in the world, and it is estimated that at least one-fifth of them need relief.

One fifth is 90 million people. If each person gets one jin of grain per day, that would be 90 million jin, more than 300,000 shi, or 45,000 tons.

That's 1.35 million tons a month. It's not even the end of the first month of the year yet. It will take three months from February, March, April to the third day of May, the Grain in Ear. That's a full three months, and we'll need 4 million shi of grain.

You don’t know until you calculate it. Once you do, you will be shocked. Oh my God, it’s an astronomical figure.

Buy it with money, where does the money come from?

Even if I spend money, can I buy so much food?

Besides, food is too expensive now. During the reign of Emperor Kangxi, the cheapest price of one stone of food was only five or six hundred coins, which is equivalent to the food prices in the 1980s and 1990s of the Republic of China.

Now one dan of rice has reached one liang and seven or eight qian of silver.

One stone of rice is 125 jin, and one ton of rice is equal to sixteen stones. Multiplying by one liang and eight qian, one ton of rice is equal to about twenty-nine liang. Including losses and shipping costs, one ton is equal to about thirty liang of silver.

Four million tons multiplied by thirty taels equals 120 million taels of silver. Yining was stunned. Where on earth could he get it?

To get 120 million silver within three months is an almost impossible task.

What's more, we can't spend all the money on food. We also have to train new troops and build warships to prepare for war!

But fainting is not the same as death. What is coming will come, and what should be said will be said.

Yining Road,

"Let's do some calculations first to see how much food we need to get through this spring."

He repeated the accounts he had calculated, and when everyone heard that it would take 120 million silver coins for food in three months, they were all dumbfounded!

Everyone says that we should release grain, but no one has carefully calculated how much grain is actually needed.

Yining Road,

“Who among you can solve this problem?”

Yining asked three times in a row, and everyone was silent.

Finally, Yining said,

"Whoever can resolve this matter will be the court's greatest meritorious official. I can confer upon him the title of Nine Thousand Years Old, a hereditary title."

Everyone stared at each other, but no one said anything.

It’s not that the emperor said the reward is not attractive, the key is that no one can solve it!

In fact, Yining created a false proposition and deliberately increased the difficulty of solving the problem.

His statement that one-fifth of the population is short of food was not based on any survey and was just an estimate.

And we don’t really need that much food every day to solve the problem, because people are capable of saving themselves.

If there were really 100 million people short of food, even if the country did not open its warehouses to provide relief, 100 million people would not really starve to death.

The reason for saying this is to undermine their self-confidence. They should stop coming here to complain for no reason and solve the problem if they have the ability.

If you can’t solve it, be well behaved in front of the emperor from now on!

Also, tell them to stop wasting his time with meaningless words.

He already had a rough plan in mind on how to provide relief. It would be bad if he didn't notify everyone when they arrived!

He looked around and saw that no one responded, so he said,

"I have decided to take two steps: providing porridge and providing relief!"

Du Shoutian asked,

"Your Majesty, how do you take two steps?"

Yining Road,

"The two-step approach is to set up soup kitchens at the gates of every county town to feed the hungry wandering people.

The next step is to ask local officials to find out the names of the people in their jurisdiction who actually need relief and report them, so that they can directly provide them with food relief.

The Ministry of Revenue will be in charge of this matter, and the grain will come from government warehouses in various places!"

Sai Shang'a said quickly,

"The slave obeys the order!"

Yining said seriously,

"No matter how much rice you use, you must keep a clear account and not make a mess of it!"

Sai Shang'a asked,

"Your Majesty, should we keep some food in the government warehouses for emergencies?"