"Recruiting workers, recruiting workers! Our trading company recruits staff, including food and accommodation, monthly wages, and daily wages of forty cents, and one day off for five days. We are in Wucheng and don't go anywhere..."

There were people yelling with paper horns on the platform. Countless people waiting for employment opportunities rushed to the side of the platform like a tide, listening to the other party's recruitment conditions.

As they listened, many people's anxiety became more and more anxious. They quickly lined up in front of high platforms according to the command of the recruiting staff.

The family has not enough surplus food, and it has been a few months since the price of food is very low and you can buy food by taking money to the grain shop, but the people who are short of money only have a few copper coins. If you want to have money, you have to help the commission and work in a long-term job.

However, everyone gathered in prefectures and counties for a long time, and they were always the few who were recruiting workers. So many people were waiting for long-term and short-term workers, but there were few opportunities, and many people became anxious.

Not to mention that spring plowing is coming, it is time to spend money. If you borrow money, in autumn, at such a low grain price, after paying off the debt, the whole family will have few surplus grains.

Maybe I can’t even pay off the debt, and I continue to owe it, and the profits will be replenished, and I will never pay off the debt for my whole life.

But if you really have no way out, you can only borrow money.

Although the government strictly ordered that loans should not be issued, rich people were not afraid of not being able to lend money. People who were short of money were waiting for money to help their lives. At critical moments, who would care so much, just like a person who was so thirsty that he smoked his throat. Even though he knew that there was a glass of poisonous wine in front of him, he would pinch his nose and drink it.

The world is so strange. Although the weather is good, the food is bumper, my family worked hard from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, but their income was much less than before. After a few years, they were almost unable to survive.

Farming, the more you grow, the more you lose. You want to help with servants or work in a long-term job, but there are no big-name recruits. Many people are so anxious that they can't find a way out. Now, the way out is right in front of you, and you are afraid that you can't line up, so who can't be in a hurry?

These people who were calling on the stage were talking about the local dialect of Beizhou, and officials wearing government officials were patrolling the streets. Everyone thought this should not be a fraud, and the recruitment conditions offered by various businesses were quite tempting, so everyone couldn't help but be moved.

Some merchants need to do shipping and make money by transporting goods, so they need to work hard to load and unload, someone needs to support (row) the boat, boatman or carpenter, and do odd jobs, so they need to hire many people, the treatment is good, and food and accommodation are included.

But the most important point is that the shipping fleet of this trading company does not need to run the complete Yongji Canal.

In other words, if you are traveling at this business, you will only be half a month away from home and will not be out for several months.

If you really have to be a coolie at the wharf, you can also be a piece-of-piece salary and get as much money as you can carry.

If you don’t have enough strength or don’t want to run a boat, other businesses that are recruiting friends can also try it. There are tea shops, wine shops, residences, etc. So many businesses seem to have agreed in advance and recruit workers on the dock today.

Officials in the government were still shouting, saying that the court knew that the food prices were low now and originally planned to stabilize prices, but considering that "the price of grain hurts the people", they used the best of both worlds to organize businesses to recruit workers in a concentrated manner, so that farmers or civilians with meager income had the opportunity to help servants and work to earn money.

The on-site recruitment is not only carried out on the dock by the canal, but also in Wucheng, there are also businesses recruiting workers in centralized manner, so the officials repeatedly emphasized, don’t be anxious or squeezed.

Such a "surprise" made the people gathered at the dock excited. There were long queues in front of the stalls of various recruiting merchants, and someone ran out to tell the good news about the good news.

The desperate people looked sad, but now they had a way out, and they couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. They also saw that there were many businesses recruiting workers, so they didn't have any chance, and then they all smiled.

The originally solemn atmosphere on the dock gradually became cheerful.

Wei Xuan, who had landed ashore, felt a little confused when he saw the situation change so much. This situation made him feel familiar.

Without even asking more questions, he rode the horse prepared by the local government and headed towards Wucheng.

......

Wucheng Office, Wei Xuan talked with Zhang Dingfa, the governor of Beizhou. Wei Xuan, who had just arrived in Wucheng, didn't bother to ask about the situation in the Beizhou section of Yongjiqu, and directly asked what happened on the dock just now.

When the emperor was in prison, he was guarding the place. Wei Xuan was an assistant officer and Zhang Dingfa, who was the Sima of the royal palace, was familiar with Wei Xuan. When Wei Xuan inspected Yongji Canal this time, as the governor of the coastal prefectures, Zhang Dingfa had to accept Wei Xuan's inquiry, so he introduced the latest policies of the court.

The reason why it is said to be the latest is that when Wei Xuan left Chang'an, this new policy had not yet passed the review of the Political Affairs Hall. Now, Zhang Dingfa took out a thick stack of information and asked Wei Xuan to listen to his introduction while reading.

The low grain hurts farmers, and the high grain hurts the people. It is easier said than done to maintain a good degree between the two. Therefore, the imperial court (the emperor) made a decision to break away from the previous practice of "calculating the warehouse" and "regulating the warehouse often" to stabilize grain prices and find a different approach.

Lowering the grain prices has made it "low grains benefit the people", but in this way, farmers have suffered serious harm and become victims in a sense. Therefore, the court adopted the method of "work-for-relief" to "relief the victims."

Disaster relief is usually distributed by the government to provide food and cloth to the victims. Nowadays, disaster relief is not the victims, but disaster relief is in the form of wages paid by employers to allow the so-called disaster victims to have money to buy food.

The full navigation of Yongji Canal means that a transportation line across Hebei will be opened, and the prefectures and counties along the canal will benefit, and the huge demand for shipping requires the introduction of a large amount of labor.

Therefore, the imperial court has guided the continued decline in grain prices in Hebei in recent years. In fact, it is necessary to use economic means to make more people leave the land and flock to the canal, relying on various shipping-related jobs to support themselves and their families by working rather than farming.

To this end, the Trade and Commerce Institute took the lead in organizing merchants to recruit large-scale workers in cities along the canal, so that those desperate people have an opportunity to work, which has existed for a long time and is not an emergency measure.

The Yongji Canal, which cost countless money to build, cannot be just to facilitate the import of Hebei grain into Guanzhong. The court should operate this important transportation line into a commercial road that benefits the prefectures and counties along the way.

Therefore, the court decided to establish the Hebei Water and Land Transport Department, which has several official offices under its jurisdiction, one of which is the Yongji Canal Transport Department, which is specifically responsible for the operation of the Yongji Canal. The Commercial Bureau also participated in it and worked hard to develop the industry and commerce of the prefectures and counties along the Yongji Canal.

After the development of industry and commerce in the prefectures and counties along the Yongji Canal, they will naturally absorb more people and engage in full-time (without agriculture). At this time, people can use the wages earned from work to buy cheap food and cloth to meet daily expenses and needs.

The policy adopted by the court now is to use the Yongji Canal as a support to import a large amount of grain into Hebei, causing a situation where "the grain is low and the people are beneficial", and the disadvantage is that "the grain is low and the grain is low and the farmers are harmed."

This situation is particularly obvious in the areas where Yongji Canal flows. In order to "relief" farmers, the court relied on Yongji Canal to "use labor instead of relief" to make up for the losses suffered by farmers due to the decrease in income. This is a best of both worlds.

Of course, the specific implementation effect remains to be seen, but now, at least the vagrants gathered in the city of various states and canals will find things to support their families one after another, and will not become "dry firewood", just one at a time.

Zhang Dingfa returned to Wucheng, Beizhou as an example, and talked about the prospect of "work-for-relief".

The water and land terminal in Wucheng will be an important transit station for Yongji Canal Shipping (Cache Transport). All the merchants that have already settled in the terminal and the newly added merchants in the city have given a total of more than 3,000 job recruitment quotas, which is enough to absorb most of the vagrants.

With the rise of canal shipping, there will be more labor demand and more labor force.

At the same time, there will be a lot of employment demand in other places along the Yongji Canal. Starting today, all places will start recruiting workers one after another, which will give farmers who are losing money in farming sufficient employment opportunities.

Wei Xuan watched and listened, and his doubts were answered, but he still couldn't let it go.

This way of solving the problem is indeed the same as the emperor's usual style of conduct. When the emperor was in charge of his residence in Henan, Wei Xuan had some understanding of the other party's style of conduct. Now it seems that "work-for-relief" is a way of being the best of both worlds.

But Wei Xuan also saw another meaning in it.

"The grain is low and the benefit of the people" and "work-for-relief" are open-minded plots, which forced a large number of farmers to work (long-term and short-term) to promote the development of industry and commerce.

The conspiracy that hid behind was to start a war against the aristocratic families and powerful people in Hebei.
Chapter completed!