Turbulent Times Chapter 1171: Natural disasters and man-made disasters

However, even though Yang Guang is the emperor, there is no way to prevent those grain merchants from raising prices. He has ordered to kill more than 20 big grain merchants. Unfortunately, these big grain merchants are just big families. , or the people who are pushed ahead by the major nobles, food is still getting more and more expensive, but there are fewer and fewer food stores.

Obviously killing people can't solve the problem... Yang Guang felt that he was powerless and incompetent in this matter. Since returning from the disastrous defeat in Liaodong, his original perverted and extreme self-confidence has disappeared, and he has begun to doubt his ability.

The war against Goguryeo drained the national treasury, and the hundreds of thousands of Sui army pensions that died or disappeared were not paid. The morale of the army fell to the bottom, and there were constant rebels everywhere. The decrease was nearly half, and the only county in the world that did not lose tax revenue, but instead increased it was Fanyang County.

But even so, Yang Guang still took two million taels of silver from the summer tax and put it in the personal treasury of the emperor, and decreed that the money could not be moved. It is used to conquer Goguryeo.

So after learning that not only the salt tax in Fanyang County has increased a lot than before, but also the agricultural tax and commercial tax have increased by more than 400,000 taels of silver, Yang Guang sighed for a long time, and scolded the prefects of various counties countless times. At the same time, I also lamented Wang Junlin's supernatural powers, and believed even more that Wang Junlin might want to be a hero, but he never had the idea of ​​rebelling against him and wanting to be the emperor.

Right now is different from the past, Yang Guang's standards for some things have been unknowingly lowered, as long as a capable courtier like Wang Junlin does not rebel and can do a lot of things for himself, he can tolerate it. But in other words, how could he be intolerant? According to the persuasion hinted by the queen and Yu Wenshu, take advantage of Wang Junlin's coming to Beijing this time, kill him?

Yang Guang sat on the dragon chair and thought about his own affairs, turning a deaf ear to the turmoil in the court. Since the news of Wang Junlin's victory came, the trend of clique formation between the court and China has become more and more intense. Yang Guang finally realized something, and then he remembered that there was something more important than Goguryeo, which was to suppress the aristocratic family that could threaten his country.

"Your Majesty, if the relief food does not arrive, the river will surely starve to death

The tragedy of changing children and eating them will be repeated. "Wenxi's Pei family is in Hedong, so Pei Shiju is very concerned about the disaster relief food, so he said solemnly again at this time.

The food that can be moved by the government in Hebei, Hedong, Guanzhong, and Gyeonggi Central Plains has been dispatched. Only Huainan and Jiangnan have been urgently dispatched. No one could have imagined this disaster. When the crops needed water most, when the crops were blooming, there had been no rain for two months. The seedlings in the fields were about to be harvested. The harvest was not much, and another locust plague ushered in the Guanzhong area, and the last grain was not received.

In the late autumn and early winter, the green and yellow can't be connected, which is a fatal disaster. In addition, Hedong experienced the rebellion of Yang Liang and Gao Ying several years ago. It was violent and swift, and the court did not have any extra money and food, so it caught the Sui Dynasty and the people by surprise all of a sudden.

In fact, it is easy to solve this problem. As long as the imperial court can afford money and sell grain with money, the wealthy merchants and grain gentry in non-disaster-affected areas will take the initiative to transport grain to the disaster-stricken area and the government for delivery. But the problem is that the imperial court has no money now. And even the imperial court and the emperor could not use force to force these big households and wealthy merchants to contribute their grain for free. Because the biggest big households are various powerful families, if Yang Guang uses force to force these people to take money and food, I am afraid that the Sui Dynasty will collapse immediately.

………

………

With more than 10,000 Sui army captives, they walked from Fanyang County to Luoyang City for nearly a month. By the time they arrived in Luoyang, it was already the end of October.

It is already winter at the end of October in the lunar calendar, and the bleak sun shines through the distant Cangshan Mountain at dusk. Because the first snow fell in the Central Plains this winter, the weather is already very cold, and the houses in the four fields are all white , that is snow.

The clouds gradually thickened, swallowing the bleak sun directly into the darkness, and the wind gradually picked up, rolling the snow on the ground and flying in the air, and snow fell from the sky, coming from different places , Snowflakes of different colors

Tangled together by the force of the wind, twisting their heads distortedly in the oppressive air, showing different levels of whiteness and coldness.

The wind and snow came back again, and the people on the road were miserable. They looked for nearby cottages or inns to rest. Since summer and autumn, there has been a drought in the east of the river, and then there has been a plague of locusts in Guanzhong. Since winter, the north of the Yellow River has fallen. It snowed several times. Although the auspicious snow heralds a good year, it will be next year's event. For the victims in Hedong, they don't know how many people will freeze to death this winter.

The snow today is not in the north of the Yellow River, but in the Central Plains south of the Yellow River. The possibility of freezing to death is very small. However, the Sui Dynasty is already in chaos. I don’t know how many refugees are in the Central Plains, and how many people don’t even have shelter. Frozen to death on the side of the road.

………

………

This is Changping County. After Changping County, you will arrive at Luoyang, the capital of the Sui Dynasty. Because it is close to the capital, it can be regarded as the foot of the emperor, so there are relatively few local bandits and water bandits.

It is precisely because of this that in this snowy day, those travelers dare to walk on the road, but although there are not many disasters, God is too shameless, and it took five or six years. , I don’t know how many people died. Although the Grand Canal and the Yellow River that were finally built were not completely frozen and sailed, not many people were willing to walk to the capital in such severe cold.

Except for the nearly 20,000 people who came from Fanyang County, because the imperial court has already set the time for the ceremony of presenting prisoners, and because Wang Junlin sent an urgent letter from the capital before setting off from Fanyang County—the backer Wang Yang Both Lin and Changsun Sheng died of illness.

Because Nie Xiaoyu was no longer by his side, Wang Junlin didn't know when these two elders who took care of him a lot died in the original history, but he died of illness suddenly before he was going to Luoyang, which was a mystery in his heart. A shadow was cast.

Because if he found an excuse not to go to Luoyang, and Changsun Sheng and Yang Lin died of illness suddenly, Wang Junlin would go to Beijing to express his condolences.