Xu Hai and his entourage set off for Beijing after lunch to resume their lives, the two main tasks of this trip have been completed, there is no need to stay any longer, Zhu Ping'an, Tan Lun and others were sent all the way to the official road.

After sending Xu Hai and his entourage away, Tan Lun stayed in Jingnan for more than an hour, accompanied by Zhu Ping'an, carefully inspected the East Lake Engineering Area, and learned in detail about all aspects of cash-for-work, precautions, and so on. Tan Lun has already made up his mind, and when he goes back, he will follow Zhu Ping'an's example to define the price of grain and carry out cash-for-work.

"Fuzun, please take a step to speak." Zhu Ping'an saw Tan Lun's determination and said softly.

Some words are inconvenient to say in public, so they can only take one step to speak, and Zhu Ping'an will not admit it after speaking.

"Master Zhu, I don't know what to say." Tan Lun came to the side with Zhu Ping'an and asked with a smile.

"How dare you see the teaching. The government wants to carry out work for relief, but I don't know how much the government treasury has? Zhu Ping'an arched his hand.

"There are still more than 38,000 silver in the treasury, but there is not much grain in stock, and there are only about 10,000 stones." Tan Lun has a lot of treasures about the situation of the treasury, and the silver in the treasury is all he has worked hard and saved one by one, and the grain depot originally had more than 20,000 stones of grain, but half of it has been consumed since the flood.

Zhu Ping'an shook his head slightly, "Fuzun, more than 38,000 taels of silver may not last. Taking our small county in Jingnan as an example, we held a cash-for-work event in Jingnan, with 20 yuan per person per day, with a total of 100,000 people and refugees participating, and the monthly wage alone required 60,000 taels, and the consumption of grain and rice was even larger. Even if three meals a day are charged, each person will only recover about 5 wen per day, which is just a drop in the bucket. ”

Tan Lun froze when he heard this, as if he had been poured a basin of cold water, and most of his enthusiasm was suddenly dispelled.

Yes, cash-for-work comes at a cost. Jingnan District is a small county, and it has to pay 60,000 taels a month, not to mention the entire Taizhou capital, and there are no less than one million people in need of relief.

What can I do?!

Tan Lun couldn't help frowning, but soon his eyes lit up again, my Fucheng can't afford it, so how did Jingnan do it, and immediately said to Zhu Ping'an, "What does Lord Zhu have to say?" ”

"Don't dare. It's just that after defining the price of grain, grain merchants from all over the country are bound to make a lot of money, they have made a fortune in Taizhou Prefecture, and they should make some contributions to Taizhou Prefecture's disaster relief. Zhu Ping'an said meaningfully.

"Lord Zhu is talking about asking grain merchants to donate money for disaster relief?" Tan Lun's eyes lit up, and he shook his head randomly, "These businessmen are the most insatiable, they must compare their money, they regard money as their lives, how can they be willing to donate." ”

In this way, the common people are afraid that they will not agree. As parents, we should be the masters of the people. ”

Zhu Ping'an said meaningfully.

Everything was in plain sight, Tan Lun understood, glanced at Zhu Ping'an, and nodded vigorously.

Zhu Ping'an also suggested that Tan Lun wait for the grain price to be defined and the grain merchants pour into Taizhou Mansion before carrying out cash-for-work relief.

Tan Lun understands that whether the banquet can be opened well depends on the grain merchant.

Soon, when Tan Lun returned to Taizhou from Jingnan, the Taizhou government posted a notice on the second day, announcing that the price of grain in Taizhou was 2,500 wen per stone. At the same time, Tan Lun also issued an official document to all counties and counties, the first part of which first praised and introduced Zhu Ping'an's experience in fighting floods and providing disaster relief in Jingnan, and the second part asked all counties and counties to raise the price of grain in their jurisdictions to 2,500 wen per stone.

Soon, the news of the explosion that the Taizhou government had raised the price of grain to 2,500 wen per stone spread widely.

As soon as the news spread, it was like a basin of blood spilled into the shark pond, and suddenly one by one the sharks named Grain Merchants went crazy.

On the day when the Taizhou government posted the definition of grain prices, there were hundreds of grain merchants of all sizes who did their best to transport grain into the boundaries of Taizhou through horse-drawn carts, donkey carts, ox carts, and ships. They are close to the water, and a little farther away, more grain merchants are coming.

For a time, the grain from all over the Ming Dynasty was continuously transported to Taizhou through grain merchants.

The grain shortage in Taizhou was suddenly alleviated, and although the price of grain was very expensive, it was no longer priceless, as long as you could get the silver, you could buy grain. Although the people of Taizhou have consumed the wealth accumulated over the years, they have finally survived this catastrophe, and Taizhou, which has been ravaged by floods, is developing in a better direction.

At the same time, Tan Lun also followed Zhu Ping'an's example and accepted the thank-you gifts sent by the grain merchants in the form of disaster relief donations. For those who did not meet Tan Lun's psychological expectations, or did not come to donate, Tan Lun sent staff to the other party's grain store and asked them to give love to Taizhou disaster relief.

Of course, for some uninteresting grain merchants, Tan Lun sent messengers to conduct clearance searches, interrogations, etc., in the name of "anti-bandits", "anti-theft", "anti-theft", etc., in short, using high-sounding reasons to make it impossible for you to operate normally. You must know that time is silver now, and opening a grain shop is like making money by robbing money, and if you delay for a while, you will make a lot less money, how can grain merchants not get along with silver. As a result, the grain merchants who had been taught a lesson became more interested and obediently made up the donations.

In this way, Tan Lun soon raised enough silver taels and grain and grass to carry out cash-for-work.

Three days after announcing the definition of grain prices, the Taizhou government issued another announcement - cash-for-work.

Tan Lun almost copied Zhu Ping'an's proposal for cash-for-work, planned a series of sieges such as post-disaster reconstruction, water conservancy facilities, repairing the city wall, anti-Japanese sentry forts, and land reclamation, and called on the people in the territory to participate in the cash-for-work relief.

However, in order to reflect the benevolence of the official uniform and loving the people like children, Tan Lun provided three meals a day for free to the people who participated in the work-for-relief program, of course, it was only the most basic porridge and nest head, and the daily wage was reduced to 15 Wen.

In fact, compared with the treatment of Jingnan for work, Taizhou Mansion is just a day and a twilight.

Because three meals a day are provided free of charge every day, and the wages are relatively small, the enthusiasm of the people is slightly inferior to that of Jingnan.

None of that matters, though.

Importantly, by defining food prices and cash-for-work policies, the flood situation in Taizhou has been improving.

Under the positive influence of Taizhou, the surrounding provinces of Shaoxing, Ningbo, Jinhua and other provinces have also begun to raise domestic grain prices, or turn a blind eye to the rise in domestic grain prices, and acquiesce in the rise in grain prices.

Grain from all over the country has been continuously transported to Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the flood situation in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is also improving. Affected by Zhu Ping'an's butterfly, the Jiangnan flood recovered faster and suffered less loss than in history, and countless people survived.