Chapter 186 Upstream
"Sanlang, the grain deficit in the Taishou warehouse is very serious, which is seriously inconsistent with the account numbers."
The North Forbidden Garden of Taiji Palace, in Taicang, has been taken over by soldiers from the Zhenfu Division at this time, and the entire city of Taicang has been sealed off.
This warehouse is only three miles away from the north wall of Taiji Palace, and only six miles away from Xuanwu Gate.
Taicang was built here, which fully demonstrates the importance of this warehouse, and only by its scale, it is also known that it is indeed important. There are twenty-four warehouses in three rows, and each warehouse can store up to 8,000 shi of grain, and when fully stored, it can store 200,000 shi of grain.
Taicang is connected to Zhongwei Bridge in the north, Taiji Palace in the south, and Caoqu Canal next to it. It has convenient transportation, far away from the residential area in the south of the city, and close to Miyagi.
However, there is another Taicang in the north of Yeting Palace, which is called South Taicang. Chang'an City has a double Taicang layout. The food stored in Shuangtaicang is mainly for the court, officials, and the imperial army, and all the officials in the capital have to go to Taicang to collect the grain.
The food in Taicang should be the most abundant, but now that the Zhenfu Division has closed the warehouse and reconciled accounts after taking over, it has found that there are serious problems.
Of the twenty-four warehouses in North Taicang, only eight are left with food, and South Taicang is almost empty.
According to the account of the warehouse department in charge of Taicang Department of Sinong Temple, there should be 300,000 shi of grain in the two warehouses.
"Qin Taicang Order, how do you explain it?"
Qin Lang asked!
Taicang supplies the court emperor, all the officials in the capital, and the imperial army. As a result, there will be such a big problem. The 300,000 shi grains on the account are actually less than 100,000 shi, and there are actually a lot of old corn and old rice.
Bei Taicang Ling was already sweating profusely, and his face was pale.
"I didn't expect you to be so courageous, even daring to steal the Taicang grain in the Forbidden Garden!"
The one surnamed Qin collapsed on the ground. When he met such a ruthless person as Qin Lang, he knew that he was finished this time. No one would have thought that at this time, the emperor would hand over Taicang to the irrelevant yamen, the Zhenfusi, to take care of it. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the various ministries to cover up each other, and it would be impossible for this thunder to explode.
"Come here, arrest all the officials and officials in the northern and southern Taicang, including the original guards, and interrogate them immediately. I want to know how they stole these grains and where they flowed. You must recover these grains."
"Duke Yi, please forgive me, please forgive me, I am just a small warehouse order and have nothing to do with me."
Qin Lang looked at this guy with disdain, "It has nothing to do with you? How could it be nothing to do with you guarding such a granary? Even if you are not greedy, but you let Taicang lose so much grain, it is still a capital crime!"
"Drag him down, and immediately seal up the homes of all Taicang officials and servants."
With the emperor's will in his hands, Qin Lang would show no mercy, nor would he tell them any evidence slowly. Now it is obvious that this kind of case is definitely a case.
During an avalanche, not a single snowflake is innocent. In the same way, there will not be a snowflake bravely going to the end of the world, and everyone is guilty.
The people depend on food.
The famine is coming, the first priority now is to control the food in the hands of the court, otherwise the limited food cannot be reasonably distributed to the people.
Some people will still waste delicacies from mountains and seas, while others will not be able to eat the soil.
There were many granaries in the Tang Dynasty. The capital Changan had Taicang and Zhengcang, as well as righteous warehouses and transfer warehouses, and even Changping warehouses in the former dynasty.
The grain in Taicang is supplied to the imperial palace and officials in the capital, so the source is the high-quality grain harvested in Zhengcang in various states and counties.
The main warehouse is the rent that is saved, that is, the land rent paid by the teachers all over the country, one dime and two stones. Or stored in the warehouses of some important states.
For example, the Hanjia warehouse in Luoyang, which can store tens of millions of grains, is a huge transit warehouse.
In addition, there are also free warehouses in various places. At first, the common people saved them after harvesting to prepare for famine relief in unlucky years. This kind of disaster relief warehouse was originally managed by the common people themselves.
During the Sui Dynasty, the imperial court also set up Changping Warehouse to adjust the price of grain. It was bought and stored in good years when grain prices were low, and then sold at a par price in bad years.
In addition, there are military warehouses in the army, especially in some border military areas, they will have their own military warehouses.
Taicang is managed by the Taicang Office of Sinong Temple, while Zhengcang is managed by governments at all levels. The Yicang was originally managed by the people themselves. Now that the disaster is in full swing, the imperial court has ordered the government to take over the Yicang.
Right now, the entire Gyeonggi region, no matter what warehouse it is, is under the control of the Town Fusi. As long as food is involved, it is directly handled by the Town Fusi.
The Town Fusi now has the priority to dispose of food.
And the Zhenfu Division itself has detached judicial power, so Qin Lang has a great deal of power over these rats in Taicang, and there is no need to argue with the Ministry of Households, Sinong Temple, Dali Temple and other departments to directly seal them Warehouses, checking accounts, and arresting people.
"Now it seems that the situation is even worse than we expected. Even Taicang's grain deficit is so serious, and the grain in other warehouses will probably be worse than the account, and our grain will be less than expected. "
"It's better to pierce these pustules as soon as possible, so that you will have a clear mind." Qin Lang said.
"Sanlang, what are your plans?" Ma Zhou asked.
"If you have any plans, you can only go upstream. First take over this mess and find out the truth. Then, how to ration it. Supply this limited food to the people of Chang'an to the maximum."
"There is less food and more people, it's still not enough!"
Ma Zhou pointed out a key issue. In the final analysis, the famine is still insufficient food supply. Cracking down on these hamsters and profiteers can only be said to alleviate it, but after all, there is only so much food, and there will still be insufficient food.
How to fill the remaining gap is the most critical point.
Qin Lang gave only two solutions. One is that the imperial court issued an imperial edict to send millet and grant honors and ranks, that is, to use official ranks to stimulate those powerful merchants and let them transport grain into the customs.
Then there is another way, which is to reopen the normal position.
"I plan to rebuild the Changping warehouse, and encourage merchants from all over the country to transport grain into Guanzhong and buy it at market prices."
"Buy at market price?" Ma Zhou was a little puzzled, "Didn't the order issued by the Zhenfu Department prohibit private transactions by Guanzhong grain merchants?"
"One size fits all."
Qin Lang did issue an order prohibiting the trading of grain merchants before. This was mainly to control all the grain in the hands of the government, so as to prevent the grain merchants from hoarding and making it impossible for the common people to buy. This order is mainly aimed at A grain merchant in Guanzhong.
And now the new one is aimed at merchants outside the customs.
During this period, if it is just blindly closing the purchase, that is to say, prohibiting merchants from raising prices, it will prevent grain from other places from being transported into Guanzhong. Because businessmen are profit-seeking, who will come if they don’t make money?
But if there is no control, then the previous order will actually be invalid, and the result will return to the past.
"So I want to reopen the Changping warehouse. The imperial court will take out the money and silk, and go to the market to buy the grain shipped from outside the customs at the market price. No matter what the price is, the government encourages them to bring the grain and eat it."
The ban on the market is to prohibit private transactions by merchants and common people. All grain transactions related to China can only be traded with the imperial court.
Ma Zhou is a smart man, and he immediately recognized the key points.
The function of the normal position is to stabilize the price of food. But now Qin Lang collects grain at a high price, and then sells it to the common people at a low price. Firstly, the grain is firmly controlled by the government, and secondly, it prevents the chaos in the price of grain in Guanzhong. question.
Businessmen want to take the opportunity to make money and let him make money. It is important to save lives by food at this time, so we cannot simply use administrative means to interfere with the market, otherwise businessmen will not be motivated and will not be willing to transport grain into the customs.
The government opened Changping warehouses to buy grain, in fact, the imperial court had to bear the consequences of the high price of grain.
The imperial court will lose a lot of real money in this way, but the people can get real benefits, which is more conducive to the management in such a chaotic situation, and a more optimized overall distribution of food.
"Old Ma, you are now a popular person around His Majesty, please explain the meaning of this move to His Majesty for me. Guanzhong cannot do without food outside the Guanzhong, but they can't let them wantonly raise prices in Guanzhong. People can’t afford food, so the court has to pay for it. But I believe that if some money can solve it, it’s not a problem, and it’s worth it.”
Ma Zhou nodded, he never expected that Qin Lang would come up with such a method to rescue the disaster that no one in the past had done before.
The ancient disaster relief generally used two methods for food control, either comprehensive control, such as banning purchases, such as prohibiting price increases, etc., or simply ignoring all of them, allowing food prices to rise and fall freely.
But no matter which one, there are still some shortcomings.
"Can you control it?" Ma Zhou asked Qin Lang. Now Qin Lang is going to take a brand new path. It sounds good, but it will also test his ability.
"I can only get on with it. Chang'an City, together with more than 20 surrounding counties, has a population of nearly one million. You can't just watch everyone starve, and you can't wait for the scene where everyone changes their children to eat."
After checking Taicang, the Zhenfu Division continued to clean up other warehouses.
At the same time, the interrogation of those hamsters was intensified, and their houses were directly confiscated, and a lot of grain was also confiscated from it. In addition, many grain merchants and grain shops were involved, and even the grain trade in the underground black market was involved. A lot of food was confiscated.
Immediately afterwards, Qin Lang began to send people to conduct door-to-door inspections from street to street, to check the population of each household, the food storage situation at home, etc., and to issue food coupons to them.
The Town Fusi will give food stamps according to the household registration and population, and the number of food stamps will be distributed according to the age. With this food stamp, you can go to the grain sales point controlled and managed by the Town Fusi to buy grain with the ticket. You can buy a family’s rations for up to seven days at a time. Much lower.
"In addition to money, do you need food stamps to buy food?"
After listening to Ma Zhou's report, Li Shimin fell into deep thought.
"What do you think of this method?" he asked.
Ma Zhou said bluntly, "I think this method is really good. It is more powerful and effective. It will prevent people from hoarding food, maximize the food supply in Chang'an, and alleviate the disaster."
(end of this chapter)