Li Ze was wrapped in a thick cloak, walking in a white field, and an old peasant official with goosebumps beside him reached out and grabbed a handful of snow from the ground with a sad face, and spread out his palm, Li Ze saw that the snow was mixed with a lot of mud.

"Xiangye, this year's snow won't be successful!" The farmer was worried.

"Are you worried that the moisture will not be enough?" Li Ze asked.

"It's not all!" The farmer said: "Xiangye, on top of our old territory such as Wuyi, the water conservancy facilities are perfect, and they have been continuously improving over the years, and the problem is not too big, but like in Hezhong, Hedong and Luzhou Weizhou, the water conservancy facilities have just been rolled out and have not yet formed a scale, and they will definitely encounter problems at that time." ”

Li Ze nodded: "For these things, have you sent official letters to these places?" ”

"Naturally, it was posted. A few days ago, Sinong Temple sent an official letter to all localities, asking them to pay attention to this and prepare for the response as soon as possible. "But I'm more worried that we will have a drought next year. ”

"Huh?" Li Ze was taken aback.

"There is too little snow this winter, which is not normal, which reminds me of the old man who also encountered such a situation decades ago, and then in the second year, it was a drought, and the people almost did not harvest, and the large-scale harvest made people fall into a desperate situation, but the government disaster relief was not effective, and all kinds of taxes could not be less than a fraction, first there were farmers in various places who resisted and paid taxes, hey, it is not a rebellion, because it is really impossible to pay."

"You mean the riots that swept the country that year?" Li Ze asked.

"Exactly!" The old peasant official said: "First it was to resist rent and taxes, then the government began to arrest people and kill people, and finally it was to kill officials, gather people to rebel, and the government suppressed it, and after three or two rounds, the world was finally in chaos." Those ten years were the most desperate years for the old man. In a flash, the rebellious Bao Xie went to kill the officials and soldiers, and in a flash, he was arrested by the officials and the army, and he went to kill the rebels, anyway, he couldn't see the end. Now that I think about it, it was a miracle that I was able to survive at that time. God still favors me after all, I am cowardly, no matter where I am, I dare not kill anyone. Or it is precisely because of this that God let me meet Xiangye and live a good life! ”

A young official behind him gently tugged at the nagging old peasant official, which made him react suddenly, and said embarrassedly: "Xiangye, don't blame, people are old, they just like to talk about useless." ”

"No, no, no, it's useful!" Li Ze looked at the officials around him and said, "A lesson from the past, a teacher from the latter." Since you think that there is a risk of a major drought next year, we would rather believe it than believe that it is not, and many things must be done in advance and be prepared. ”

The members of the secretary and supervisor standing behind Li Ze immediately waved down what Li Ze said.

"This matter can't be done by Si Nong Temple alone, so I will go back and notify the relevant ministries and hold a collective meeting to discuss how to deal with possible disasters next year." Li Ze continued.

"The minister will immediately start making arrangements and notify the chiefs of the various ministries!" Chapter Follower.

"Intensify grain purchases." Li Ze looked at Wang Mingyi, who was in charge of the supply and marketing cooperative, who came with him today, and said: "Mingyi, make a plan, how can you quietly buy a large amount of grain and gather it to prepare for the famine. ”

"It's difficult!" Wang Mingyi said: "This year was originally a bumper year in our north, and the purchase of a large amount of grain at this juncture will inevitably arouse the suspicion of the outside world. Those merchants in the south, all of them are goblins. Moreover, the large amount of food entering our jurisdiction will also have a great impact on prices. ”

"This is your household business, you go and get a good plan." Li Ze thought for a while and said, "Isn't the team going to Lingnan to welcome relatives already about to set off?" Prepare more ships and buy a large amount of grain and grass in Lingnan, and in the name of a big wedding, you can cover up this matter a little. ”

"Does Lingnan Xiang Xun agree? Food is the foundation of a land! Wang Mingyi frowned.

"He'll agree." Li Ze smiled coldly: "When the queen enters the door, she always has to give us some gifts." Under the pretext of finding it yourself, in Lingnan, I heard that grain can be harvested twice a year, and in some places it can even be harvested three times, but it is not comparable to ours here. ”

"Yes!"

Almost at the same time, in Tai'an, which is far away from Wuyi, Zhu Youzhen was also inspecting the construction sites everywhere. After the winter, Xu Xiang organized a large-scale peasant to start building water conservancy, digging ditches, repairing weirs and ponds, and by the way, repairing the very unbearable roads. Of course, the way he did this was not in cash-for-work, but in forced labor. All the people of Tai'an, every family, need to pay their own food, and serve a full month of forced labor.

The common people did not complain much, for this time they found that the matter of conscription was very fair, and the former rich families, landlords, and squires did not escape. What's more, their mansion monarch Xu Xiang also haunts construction sites one after another all day long! Although the government does not provide food and does not pay wages, it has also built some shelters for everyone to live in, and provided some warm-up ginger soup every day.

In previous years, they served as conscription, that is, the ghost gate, and many people came and never went back. But this year, this worry is much smaller.

"Xu Xiang, you are a dignified gentleman, there is no need to work with these people, right?" Zhu Youzhen frowned and looked at Xu Xiang, who was wearing an official robe full of muddy water.

Xu Xiang glanced around, and saw that there were no idle people waiting, so he lowered his voice and said: "Your Highness, you still need to do something, we have no money, no food, we can only work people's hearts." ”

"Conscription itself is what they should do!" Zhu Youzhen said.

"That's what I said, but who let the north compare to us?" Xu Xiangyi grinned and said: "I heard that in the north, there is a famous name for doing these things, called cash-for-work, the government provides food, and some rich places also pay wages, we don't have this strength!" They can only come out and share the weal and sorrow with the people. ”

Zhu Youzhen's face was slightly pale, and she nodded slightly.

Xu Xiang pointed to the lively construction site and said: "Your Highness, this year's snow is small, the moisture is insufficient, and I heard the old farmer say, such abnormal weather means that tomorrow may suffer from drought, so this water conservancy renovation, must not be sloppy, this winter, we must get more out, build more ditches, next year we can collect so many more than three or five buckets of grain, when Your Highness fights, you can be a little richer." ”

"I'm wrong about you." Zhu Youzhen arched his hand and said, "I heard Tian Guofeng complain in front of me, saying that the little belongings you saved when you were in Mount Tai were all taken out by you to buy medicinal herbs, and you prepared these ginger soups and the like?" ”

"He's such a big mouth." Xu Xiang said dissatisfiedly: "Don't hide it from Your Highness, I'm not a person who does loss-making business, and now I take out these yellow and white things, aren't I preparing to ask for more things from Your Highness in the future?" ”

Zhu Youzhen was stunned for a moment, and then laughed: "It's good to understand such a thing in your heart, but it's a little pickled when you say it!" ”

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about, it's just something you want." Xu Xiang said: "I don't say it, Your Highness also understands." ”

"The way you look, it's not in line with the rules of officialdom."

"What I need to cater to is just His Highness, and what His Highness needs, I know very well in my heart, and I don't need to care about other people." Xu Xiang said: "I have read books, rebelled, been a bandit, and many things, but I have thought about them all and thought them through. ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded: "That's right." He rolled up his sleeves, picked up a pickaxe from the ground, and strode to the construction site. Seeing this, the other accompanying officials could only pick up all kinds of tools from the ground and follow Zhu Youzhen. Sun Tonglin picked up a hoe, and when he walked to Xu Xiang's side, he glanced at him meaninglessly, and Xu Xiang gave him a bright smile in return.

"Listen, Your Highness has come with us to dig a ditch, the one who works carelessly and wants to mess around, I will break your legs and let you climb back." Xu Xiang trotted into the crowd and roared loudly.

Since he was injured and captured, and was tortured by his subordinates, Zhu Youzhen's body and bones have not been very good, although he has only worked on the construction site for less than an hour, but when he returned to the official office with a body of muddy water, he still felt sore, soaked in a bath, lay on the soft couch, and the two maids knelt on the bed and gently massaged him gently.

"Your Highness, you should try not to do such a thing." Cao Bin sat in front of the couch and persuaded in a low voice: "In such a place, there are a mixture of fish and dragons, and Xu Xiang is also bold, in the end, he is a bandit." ”

"Although I was very tired, I still realized a lot of truths!" Zhu Youzhen said: "When I work hard, those ordinary people look at me differently. Didn't you see it, Sun Tonglin has suffered a lot of white eyes today, all because he can't work hard, whether you work hard or not, those ordinary people can see it at a glance! ”

"That's natural, they're all veterans, just like when we fight, as soon as we get started, we know what kind of character the other party is!" Cao Bin said with a smile.

"You've been supervising the army all this time, how many of them are handy?" Changing the posture and letting the maid massage the other side, Zhu Youzhen asked.

"Liu Xinda's 3,000 soldiers can't move, and they need to be used as the core to form a left-behind force to prevent the Tang army." Cao Bin said: "The three thousand soldiers and horses I brought, His Highness can take away two thousand people at that time, and I am going to keep the remaining one thousand to capture Xuanwu." Tian Fengguo's Taishan bandits have 1,000 elites. In other words, Your Highness, what you will take with you next is an army formed with these 3,000 people as the core. If you draw out the available divisions from the training army, you will bring out a maximum of 20,000 people this time, and if there are too many, it will not work, but it will be bad. ”

"Twenty thousand!" Zhu Youzhen took a cool breath.

"That's enough." Cao Bin said with a smile: "The Wuning Army has not fought for many years, and its combat effectiveness is not worth mentioning. ”