7, locust plague

In addition to the happy event of the rising status of his biological mother, the seventh prince also had another happy event that made him happy for a long time, that is, Liu Shaoyun, who was willing to gamble and lose, finally became his senior staff. After being the champion, Liu Shaoyun was sent by the emperor to the Hanlin Academy and became a bachelor's degree. This position seemed to have no real power. In fact, it was the emperor's staff. When dealing with government affairs, the emperor would come to consult the advisory group. Although his official position is only from the fourth grade, at least he is a close minister of the emperor. In the eyes of outsiders, it is already a very extraordinary thing. Moreover, compared with the general champion who can only start from the seventh grade official, as soon as he enters the official career, he starts from the fourth grade, which has scared many people's chin. But thinking that he is Qian Wang's son-in-law, he doesn't feel abrupt.

As for Liu Shaoyun's family, I heard that he won the champion and was engaged to Prince Qian's granddaughter. The family cancelled his original marriage very happily, and the other party did not say anything. This was originally an appointment with the Liu family, and the neighbors knew this agreement. Even if the Liu family withdrew from the marriage, it was reasonable.

However, it was a great deal for a royal county king to marry at home. After comforting their ancestors, the family of the Liu family began to prepare for a grand wedding. The Liu family was originally an extremely rich and rich family. This time, in order to save face for Liu Shaoyun, they did not hesitate to spend a lot of money. The house built in the capital alone made the ordinary official eunuch family ashamed.

Liu Shaoyun didn't want to be extravagant, but his father told him very seriously that his parents did the wedding for their children. If he didn't want him to interfere, he was very interested in staying away.

Winter is coming again, but this winter is very strange. There is no cry in the cold wind, but there is continuous freezing rain. The whole winter is spent in wet and cold conditions, which makes the old antiques of Qintianjian frown.

So Qin Tianjian wrote a book to the emperor, saying that the winter season is abnormal, and there may be disasters at the beginning of spring. Please prepare as soon as possible.

At the beginning of spring, it was really said by the old crows of Qin Tianjian. There was a locust plague across the country, and more than 70% of the land was almost grainless.

The emperor is really anxious now. Although there have been no large-scale disasters in recent years, there is no big war, and there is still some grain in the granary. However, the area of this locust plague accounts for almost half of the country's arable land. Even if the national granary takes out all the grain storage, it may not be able to survive the next harvest safely. Moreover, as soon as the disaster occurred, those profiteers began to hoard, and food prices continued to rise. The big landlords across the country also looked closely at their own granaries, and no one was willing to take out their own rations to help the country.

Fortunately, Chengjia, as the leading largest merchant in the country, has the largest number of grain stores. Many rice and grain stores led by Chengjia insist on selling grain at a normal price, so that the people still have a way to live. At present, it has not caused much panic. But everyone knows very well that this situation will not last long. Once the grain is sold out, the man-made disaster will not be far away.

There was a sad cloud in the court, and the kings and ministers were like a mirror in their hearts. If the victims were hungry, there would be civil changes. At that time, the money spent on suppressing alone would make the court unsistible. However, now the whole country has this point of grain storage. First of all, we have to take care of so many officials from all over the country, and there are millions of troops to support. In addition, there is no income this year. The situation of disaster relief is really not optimistic.

The helpless emperor issued the edict. No matter who it is, as long as there is a way for the whole country to get through this disaster, he will be grateful.

In the palace of the King of Qi, the king of Qi, the seventh prince, Liu Shaoyun and Zhong Zicheng all gathered together to discuss how to deal with this natural disaster.

In fact, everyone knows very well that it is not impossible to survive this disaster safely. The key is how to dig out the surplus food in the hands of the landlord class. Of course, the emperor can't offend the landlord class, otherwise he can't sit on the throne. Peasants rebel. These people have no money or equipment. As long as they suppress it a little, it will pass. If the landlord class takes the lead, the situation will be completely different.

There were more than a dozen staff under the throne of Qi, and some people had some bad ideas, but they were all rejected by the king of Qi. Nowadays, the surplus grain in the whole country has been warned that no one is willing to sell it with money. Stealing or robbing is not the fundamental solution to the problem.

Liu Shaoyun had been frowning. When everyone had nothing to do, he said, "I have a way, maybe it's feasible. But before this method is proposed, we need to find someone.

"Who?" The king of Qi was refreshed.

"It's the real master of Shenmi." Liu Shaoyun said, "Do you still remember the sensation caused by Shenmi a year ago? Now the Empress Dowager, His Royal Highness the King of Qi, Prince Qian's family, and even the seventh princes all use this rice as their daily ration, but who provided this rice and how much he still has, I don't know. Only finding this person may solve our problems.

The king of Qi was stunned and said with a wry smile, "I don't know who this rice is. I always get it from Prince Qian, and I heard from Prince Qian that he didn't grow this rice, and there was someone else who gave him rice."

This time, the country is facing a huge disaster. Prince Qian, King Qi and other royal clans have long contributed their surplus food, but Bai Lingmi is obviously not among them.

At that time, Shenmi was found by the world that it was spread from Hongxiu Tianxiangxuan. Later, everyone knew that Miss Meng was Mengrou Junjun of Prince Qian's Mansion, so they were not surprised. Prince Qian's Mansion used this kind of rice as food, and it was normal for Mengrou Junjun to take some to eat by himself.

"Then we may invite His Royal Highness Prince Qian over and discuss it together." Liu Shaoyun suggested.

"No." The seventh prince stopped the action of the king of Qi from sending someone to invite Prince Qian and said, "I know who gave the rice, but if you invite her to come and discuss, it will definitely not be good for so many people to squeeze together. Well, second brother, Shaoyun, I'll take you two to find her. I'm not sure whether she is willing to help or not.

The king of Qi nodded and said, "Well, since the seventh brother knows each other, he won't have to disturb Prince Qian."

After a time, the three appeared in the small courtyard of Prince Qian's house, Cheng Yuanjia. At this point, the king of Qi and Liu Shaoyun also understand that the real provider of Shenmi must be Cheng Yuanjia, otherwise it cannot be explained that the beneficiaries are basically close to her side.

Cheng Yuanjia poured a cup of tea for everyone and said, "If you have nothing to do, don't go to the Three Treasures Hall. I'm afraid it's not a good thing for you guys to come to me together."

"Do you dare to ask Junjun, is the divine rice you planted?" Liu Shaoyun restrained his arrogance and asked sincerely.

"God rice? What is it?" Cheng Yuanjia frowned and asked rhetorical.

The seventh prince quickly explained on the side and said, "It's your Bai Lingmi."

"Well, of course, no one can grow it except me." Cheng Yuanjia understood and said with a smile, "What, do you want to buy it?"

"Yes, if the gentleman is willing to give up his love, we want to buy some." On the way here, Liu Shaoyun had already told his plan to the two princes, so the king of Qi immediately said.

"If you want to buy it, I won't sell it." Cheng Yuanjia didn't care and said, "I don't lack this little money. If I wanted to take advantage of this to make money, I wouldn't let my rice shops sell at the original price. I would have cooperated with those profiteers to raise the price long ago.

The three visitors are speechless. Indeed, everyone in the world will be short of money, but the one opposite them will never be short of money.

"In fact, we don't buy rice to eat it ourselves?" The seventh prince is most familiar with Cheng Yuanjia. At this moment, he plays the role of persuasion and said, "As you know, in this year's disaster, almost no crops have been harvested. The big landlords take the opportunity to hoard, and the common people are about to run out of food. We bought rice from you for disaster relief.

"It's not that I'm stingy, but that you have eaten this rice. If you give this rice to the disaster victims, how can they eat ordinary rice in the future? Do you want them to eat white rice every meal?" Cheng Yuanjia said seriously, "You also know the difficulty of planting conditions for this rice. It is impossible to plant it under natural circumstances. I don't want to have a man-made disaster after the locust disaster."

"What? Can't this rice be planted?" The king of Qi was surprised.

The seventh prince told the conditions of planting, and the king of Qi and Liu Shaoyun frowned. In fact, when both of them came, they both wanted to ask for some grain seeds. They hoped to take the opportunity to grow some by themselves. They didn't want to rely on this to make money, but at least enough to eat.

"This rice is so difficult to grow, so how much do you have in your hand?" Liu Shaoyun began to have no confidence in his plan. In his plan, at least Bai Lingmi with more than 10,000 stones can be implemented. However, according to the current situation, it is very good for Cheng Yuanjia to feed these people normally.