After Guo Yunhou finished speaking, Zhu Youzhen paid attention to the expressions on the faces of the cabinet ministers. Although Guo Yunhou's report is very close to the truth, he also avoids a certain fact and does not dare to touch it.

That is, the Ming Dynasty is a hierarchical society, how can everyone enjoy the same food. For example, Chongzhen himself spent more than 30 taels of food a day, which was the result of his routine frugality.

In the past, his imperial grandfather, Emperor Wanli, had a monthly food cost of as high as 480 taels, but in his generation, because of the rising prices, even if the food cost exceeded 1,000 taels per month, it was not as good as the food of Emperor Wanli.

And the few ministers here may not be much worse than his food. The elites, who account for one percent of the population of the Ming Dynasty, consume almost more than 20% of the annual grain production of the Ming Dynasty.

And those ordinary landlords and middle- and lower-level officials are also not people who only enjoy 3 stones of rice a year. In fact, the person who can consume 3 stone of grain a year is not even the lowest level of the Ming Dynasty.

As long as the Ming Dynasty could not enter the industrial society from the agricultural society, then the Ming Dynasty could not get rid of the limitations of the agricultural society, and the food output in the agricultural era depended on the sky for food, and naturally it could not feed the population beyond the burden of the land.

Since the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese dynasty will not be more than 300 years old, which is because the land suitable for the development of the agricultural era has been basically developed.

The sparse population in the early years of the dynasty, after nearly 300 years of dynastic peace, will inevitably break through the upper limit of land bearing, and without the emergence of new technologies to increase food production, the surplus population will start riots in order to survive.

The politics of the last years of the natural dynasty contributed to the intensity of this peasant revolt. But what can save the last days of the dynasty is not the politics of clarity, but the technological revolution that promotes the productive forces of society.

Zhu Youzhen no longer paid attention to the embarrassment on the faces of these cabinet ministers, but asked Guo Yunhou again: "So how much grain do we need to send to Shaanxi this year to allow Shaanxi to survive this famine?" ”

"Three million stones." Guo Yunhou spoke, looking at the suspicious eyes of Chongzhen and his colleagues, he quickly explained: "This is the upper limit of grain that can be transported to Shaanxi, thanks to which His Majesty proposed to set up a grain reserve market in Luoyang and repaired the road from Luoyang to Sanmenxia.

Most of this road is on the trade road from Henan to Shaanxi, and it has always been maintained by merchants spontaneously, but although this trade road was smooth before, it has always been difficult and difficult to travel, and only one car can be barely allowed to pass.

His Majesty intends to extend this road to four parallel vehicles, and to extend the narrowest passes to two parallel vehicles, and to pave the road with a new type of cement.

The entire road is about 300 miles long, and 12 new bridges of various sizes need to be built to shorten the road journey. The entire project was expected to take 25 months and be completed by the end of May of the following year.

However, after the arrival of Sun Chuanting, the prefect of Luoyang, he was diligent and hardworking, and the road repair project progressed rapidly. It is expected that by the beginning of October, the entire old road will be extended to the extent that two cars can run in parallel.

It is precisely because of the existence of this road that the amount of grain transported into Shaanxi can be doubled in the past. However, 3 million stone is already the upper limit of grain imported into Shaanxi this year.

These 3 million stone grain may not be able to save everyone for the 3 million people in Shaanxi who were affected by the disaster, but it is enough to prevent large-scale civil unrest in Shaanxi. ”

Guo Yunhou's words made everyone silent, although the head of the household did not directly explain, but he had vaguely stated in his words that the strongest part of the affected people in Shaanxi can probably be relieved, but those weak women and children who can't even go to the county seat, whether they can survive or not depends entirely on the will of God.

The 3 million people affected by the disaster are also only the number of people registered by the government, not the actual number of people affected. Guo Yunhou had only criticized the authenticity of the population figures in Zhang Ruitu's report, and at this moment, he himself unconsciously blinded himself and pretended to believe the data of 3 million people affected by the disaster in the Shaanxi local newspaper.

Zhu Youzhen was silent for a long time before he unconsciously asked, "Then is there only so much we can do?" What I mean is that I don't just think about whether there will be a civil uprising in Shaanxi, but whether we can save a few more people. ”

Huang Liji sighed in his heart, and finally took over the topic of Chongzhen and said: "Your Majesty, if you can prevent a large-scale civil uprising in Shaanxi, you will be able to let more people affected by the disaster live."

In previous years, the imperial court only reduced or exempted the land tax and allocated a part of the money and grain to the disaster-stricken areas. This year, His Majesty not only reduced or exempted the local land tax in Shaanxi, but also transported 3 million stone of grain into Shaanxi, which is already a great virtue policy.

What's more, in addition, some of the family members of the Shaanxi health center were moved to Sichuan, recruited people to go out of Shaanxi, repaired the road from Henan to Shaanxi, and built railways, coal, and iron mines in Shanxi, and more than 100,000 people left Shaanxi alone.

It is estimated that by the end of the year, the number of hungry people in Shaanxi will move to other provinces will reach 300,000, which has greatly reduced the difficulty of disaster relief in Shaanxi.

Although His Majesty is worried, manpower is sometimes exhausted, and everything that the court can do has now been done. The rest depends on the will of God. ”

Listening to Shoufu's words, Zhu Youzhen felt that he should breathe a sigh of relief, although he didn't dare to say that his coping strategy was perfect, but compared to most people in this era, he had indeed done a good enough.

But Huang Liji's exculpatory words did not make Chongzhen feel better, and his heart was still heavy.

If he agrees with the opinion of the cabinet ministers that the power of the imperial court has been exerted to the limit, then where he cannot see, perhaps thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of lives will disappear quietly.

The record of them in the history books may be just: In a certain year and month, there was a great hunger in Shaanxi, and there was no one for hundreds of miles. That's just one line.

In times like these, no one will remember their births, and no one will remember their deaths, as if they had never been in this world. And all this is simply because they are just a bunch of ordinary people.

For future generations, these ordinary people are just a wave at the beginning of the great era. Their birth and death are just to prove the cruelty of this era and set off the background of the times when those big people appeared.

Their joys and sorrows are completely insignificant, no, it should be said that no one cares about their joys and sorrows. However, Su Changqing wanted to care, because his soul was still an ordinary person, not an emperor of a feudal dynasty.

"If we want to help more people, is there any better way?" Zhu Youzhen thought about it for a long time, and finally ignored Huang Liji's hint and said what he was thinking.

Chongzhen's ruling performance since he ascended the throne for a year, as a minister who accepted the last order of the Emperor of the Apocalypse and assisted Chongzhen, Huang Liji has always been greatly appreciated.

He believes that although Chongzhen is not as smart and wise as his brother, he still has a better understanding of the world's lovers and hearts.

Chongzhen's whimsical ideas for solving problems were often unexpected, and often feared courtiers who had become accustomed to following rigid procedures.

As the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Chongzhen's performance can be called outstanding, and the only thing that worries Huang Liji is that His Majesty the Emperor likes to be close to villains more than gentlemen.

In the eyes of Confucian scholars like Huang Liji, gentlemen and villains refer not only to morality, but also to scholars and illiterate people.

If it weren't for the fact that these scholars and doctors and the Donglin Party had fought to the point of life and death, Huang Liji's heart actually did not approve of the public education promoted by Chongzhen and the policy of improving the status of craftsmen and merchants.

Huang Liji exchanged glances with several colleagues, and before he could think of how to persuade Chongzhen, Xu Guangqi suddenly said: "I think that we can consider promoting the planting range of corn and potatoes, and in addition to promoting the wheat and cotton rotation system in the north..."

Although Xu Guangqi was a scholar, he was more concerned about the education of the Royal Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Agriculture, and Yenching University.

After the drought in Gyeonggi, Suncheon tried to get farmers on the outskirts of Gyeonggi to replant some food to alleviate the food shortage.

The Agricultural Research Institute selected three types of corn, sweet potatoes and potatoes, and there are no popular overseas crops in the north of the Ming Dynasty.

The crops replanted in July and August were growing very well by the end of September, and the staff of the Agricultural Research Institute believed that these three crops were generally drought tolerant and barren, and did not need to occupy fertile land, and tasted good as staple food.

Among them, corn has the lowest planting requirements, while sweet potatoes and potatoes have their own requirements, sweet potatoes are not cold tolerant, and potatoes are not resistant to high temperatures. In other words, sweet potatoes are more suitable for plains and hilly areas with better water and heat conditions, while potatoes are more suitable for mountainous areas.

In addition to the small area of the Guanzhong Plain, northern Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu all belong to the mountainous plateau area. In this way, potatoes and corn are more suitable for cultivation in the Northwest.

The weather is abnormal for many years, so that the temperature in the northern region is always cooled earlier, which has a great impact on the yield of wheat, but potatoes and corn grow about half as long as wheat, so they are less affected by temperature.

Therefore, if potato and corn cultivation can be promoted in these areas, not only can the impact of abnormal temperature on wheat cultivation be avoided, but also some barren mountains that are not suitable for cultivation can be cultivated.

As for the wheat and cotton rotation system, everyone didn't pay much attention to it, and this kind of overly specialized knowledge, a few people here didn't have much patience to understand.

After listening to Xu Guangqi's opinion, Zhu Youzhen immediately nodded and said, "Actually, I also got some information from the Agricultural Research Institute.

However, I originally wanted to do more experiments and comparisons before promoting, and since Mr. Xu thought that the environment in the northwest was suitable for the promotion of these two crops, then I would like to take this opportunity to promote these two crops in the name of the imperial court. ”

Guo Yunhou smiled a little bitterly in his heart, as the head of the household department, his main charge in the cabinet is agriculture, but as the second assistant Xu Guangqi, he wants to talk about agriculture, but no one can stop him except the first assistant.

After Guo Yunhou agreed, he would promote the planting of corn and potatoes, implement the two-year three-cropping system in suitable areas in the north, and implement the two-year two-cropping system in suitable areas in the south, and send it to Chongzhen finally put down the topic.