As the imperial capital of the Ming Dynasty, Beijing City has countless news pouring in from the south of the Yangtze River and Haibei every day, whether it is the folk rumors and gossip or the people's livelihood politics in the court, it can be spread to all corners of the capital in one day.

The officers and soldiers are like breaking bamboos, the locust plague in Shandong has not been harvested for thousands of miles, the plague in Hebei has risen again, where have I heard that another bandit is in rebellion, I heard that the prince has left the palace to inspect the people's situation in Henan, and there is a hidden mine hidden in it, and some time ago, the notorious Qufuyan Holy Father Kong Yinzhi suddenly died.

Yes, what the Qufu Confucius family reported to the imperial court was a sudden death, and there was no specific reason.

The so-called violent death may be a sudden illness, or it may have an accident, but the specific situation is speculation, and the people feel that they will not be scolded to death by us when they listen to the gossip, you must know that the Confucian family has been high for generations, but in the last month, the north and south of the country were shouting and shouting and killing, scolding them for hypocrisy, full of benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, faith, loyalty, filial piety, shame and bravery, but the knees are very soft, who will kneel whom...... How could the Kong family have suffered such an insult for thousands of years, maybe the head of the family would burp in a fit of anger.

The people thought that this was the case, but it was clearly written in the fold on Emperor Chongzhen's desk that the villains committed murder.

To put it bluntly, he was killed, and he didn't say in detail how he killed it, and it didn't matter to Emperor Chongzhen at all, it was a puppet used by the court to fool the people and died, and he just let his son succeed him.

Emperor Chongzhen doesn't care about these at all, because there are too many bad things that he needs to deal with, and the most burning eyebrows is food, the whole territory of Henan and Hebei plus some areas of Shanxi in northern Shandong Province lost the summer harvest due to the disaster of war, which caused the butterfly effect The autumn harvest has also been greatly affected, dozens of millions of people are hungry for food, which requires a large amount of food relief, this is a big gap, and it is also the most serious problem faced by the imperial court at this time, if it cannot be solved, countless people will starve to death this winter!

But in general, the situation in Daming is much better than a few months ago, you must know that at that time, the thieves were going to hit the capital, Daming was crumbling, although it was still in dire straits, but the court was not so dangerous, and the surrounding soldiers were swept away by Chang Yu, which was still very gratifying.

Chang Yu swept Bai Wang to make Emperor Chongzhen Longyan happy, but he still couldn't cover up the anxiety caused by the food crisis, Chang Yu's move to squeeze out the relief of military food made him feel and moved, but after all, it was a drop in the bucket, and there was no other way than to transfer grain from the south at the moment, but to ...... There are many places in the south that are not under the control of the imperial court, and the areas that can be rescued by grain are only in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, but these places do not provide free shipping, and you have to pay first.

Is the court rich? There is also a little bit, copied tens of millions of Shanxi Jin merchants, only a few million left in just a few months, and just last month just allocated 1 million to Ning Yuanzu Dashou to rebuild the fortress outside the Guanwai.

This is equivalent to giving one's own home monastery wall, and the money that must be spent is not given.

How much food can I buy with that little money left? Moreover, it is impossible for the imperial court to use the surplus money from the treasury to buy grain for disaster relief, so it can only urge the southern provincial capitals to pay the autumn payment.

Counting on the use of autumn endowment for disaster relief, if you don't say if it's enough, just ask if it's too late.

And the grain is so easy to harvest.

Therefore, the price of grain in the capital has soared to the sky, although the Octopus Chamber of Commerce has taken the lead in setting an example and resolutely not raising prices, and the imperial court has also intervened to raise prices, but now the cost of grain is rising, and the grain merchants do not raise prices and have no money to make, so they can't sell it at a loss.

Emperor Chongzhen was anxious, and the courtiers were all mouth cannons and couldn't come up with practical and effective methods, at this time, Jinyiwei sent big news, and Zheng Zhilong of Fujian Province sent hundreds of large ships of grain from Tianjin to Tongzhou Wharf.

I rub!

Emperor Chongzhen was really a stirring spirit when he heard this, sending charcoal in the snow, how could Zheng Zhilong be so discerning to see such kindness and generosity, and under careful questioning, it turned out that it was Chang Yu's plan to plan ahead of time, which really made Emperor Chongzhen feel a lot of emotion, what good things did he do in his previous life, and he was such a good eunuch.

The news is good news, but the reality is still very cruel, only a small part of Zheng Zhilong's hundreds of boats of grain is rice grain, and the rest are potatoes and sweet potatoes, and they can't be eaten, they are used as seeds.

Could it be that Chang Yu wants to promote the cultivation of these two crops in the north on a large scale? And isn't it a little late to plant now, and where he plans to plant, in this famine year, you may be pulled out and eaten as soon as you plant.

No, hurry up and call this kid back to ask clearly, maybe only he can solve the current food crisis, so Emperor Chongzhen sent people to urge him, but he got a shocking news, Chang Yu took the waterway!

Isn't this, if you ride back to Beijing quickly, it will take three or five days, and you will have to take the waterway for ten days and half a month at the earliest, if you are someone else, Emperor Chongzhen will have to stomp his feet and scold, but he understands that the reason why Chang Yu takes the waterway is definitely not for recreation, it must be profitable.

As the boss of the East Factory, Chang Yu knows all the news in the capital, even if he takes the waterway, there are Jinyi Wei and fans of the East Factory along the way every day to report all kinds of information.

Three days later, at the beginning of the night, the fleet arrived at the Xuzhou wharf, a group of people entered the city, Gao Jie did the east in the general military mansion to hold a banquet to entertain the guests, nearly 100 relatives and guards including Ma Yingkui, Yan Yingyuan, Li Mingyu, etc. all attended, for a time the general military palace was very lively.

The chairman was placed in the lobby, but there were very few people who could sit in this position, just the number one, Shi Kefa, Li Muxian, Gao Jie and his wife and Chang Yu.

Women are not allowed to sit at the table these days, but Mrs. Xing is not an ordinary person, and this is more like a family banquet, if someone feels uncomfortable or unsuitable, only Shi Kefa should be, but he will never say it and will not show it.

Mrs. Xing is not only a heroine but also a very discerning person, she rarely speaks during the banquet, she doesn't ask or say anything, she doesn't ask anything, although she is also curious about the things on the battlefield, but she will definitely not ask at the banquet, just turn around and the wind blows slowly on the bedside.

But what's interesting is that she and Chang Yu talked the most during the banquet, and everyone else was eating, drinking or listening together, because what the two of them were talking about borrowing food.

As the boss behind Gao Jie's virtuous helper, Mrs. Xing is in charge of all Gao Jie's food, and she is a shrewd businessman, but when Chang Yu opened her mouth, she did not hesitate or ask how much interest to give and how long to borrow, just like Gao Jie, it is also the same sentence: "Uncle can take as much as he wants"! (Calling uncle is the local name of northern Jiangsu or southern Lunan, which refers to the meaning of the child's uncle)

"Sister-in-law's righteousness" Chang Yu even respected Mrs. Xing three times, and then the two discussed the details for a long time, after all, people say that you can use whatever you want, you really take whatever you want, and the benefits that should be given still have to be given.

And Chang Yu can't really empty Gao Jie's warehousing at once, and he won't borrow it for several years, and everyone is happy after agreeing to repay it in installments and how much interest, but this is enough for the Octopus Chamber of Commerce to be busy, in addition to the conventional help the military to purchase and transport grain and grass, this time also sent additional manpower from Yangzhou to transport the grain purchased by the Wang brothers to the capital, from Xuzhou to Kaifeng, Luoyang, Puzhou, and from Jinan to Puzhou and the capital in batches, which has to use how much manpower and material resources, but it is also a good thing, After all, it can solve the employment problem of thousands of people, which is equivalent to solving the food and clothing of thousands of families.

It was late at night after the party, and everyone went back to their rooms to rest, but Gao Jie was not in a hurry to get married, but discussed a secret matter with Chang Yu in the courtyard while enjoying the shade.

Mrs. Xing arrested Xu Dingguo!

Chang Yu was also dumbfounded when he first heard the news, in history, Gao Jie was booby-trapped by Xu Dingguo, and he had previously reminded Gao Jie to be careful of this person, and if he encountered it, he would be killed.

Gao Jie said before going south that he had listened to Mrs. Xing, but he didn't expect Mrs. Xing to be so bold that she would design to deceive Xu Dingguo from Suizhou (now Sui County, Henan) in Guide Prefecture and then detain him.

After asking about the process carefully, it turned out that Mrs. Xing sent Gao Jie's henchmen to send Hu Maozhen to Suizhou to find Xu Dingguo, saying that Gao Jie invited him to conspire with him.

Xu Dingguo is now an idle soldier, gathering hundreds of people to mess around in Suizhou, saying that he is a soldier or a soldier, and that he is a thief and not a thief, but he also does the same thing as this thief (in the sixteenth year of Chongzhen, Li Zicheng broke Sun Chuanting in Tongguan, Xu Dingguo and other generals were defeated, and ran back to the township to watch the situation for fear of being held accountable)

In history, before the thieves entered Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen rewarded many generals in order to call on the world's soldiers and horses to be kings, such as Wu Sangui, Zuo Liangyu and Huang Degong were knighted, and Xu Dingguo, who was the chief military officer of Shanxi at that time, was also on the list, and the official was promoted to one level.

If you open Xu Dingguo's resume, you will find that although he is not as good as Huang Degong's counterattack, he is also quite inspirational, from a low-level military attache to the top soldier, and later he was knighted in the Southern Ming Dynasty, and the Suizhou Rebellion launched to trap Gao Jie led to the collapse of the defense line in the late Ming Dynasty. ”