"Your Majesty, I think that these hungry people who are rebelling must be suppressed and pacified. We cannot suppress them hard, nor can we just leniently recruit them. The hungry people do rebellion because they cannot eat and are hungry and can only rob and cause rebellion. Therefore, it can be said that the court actually bears part of the responsibility, and they have a cause, and the court cannot kill them blindly."

"But at the same time, many hungry people make trouble, not only to steal food, but they will even quickly turn into robbers, robbers, even commit all kinds of evil deeds, killing, robbers, and other evil deeds, and even have worse intentions. And it is not enough to just recruit people."

"I believe that when both suppression and appeasement are used, first of all, the court should recruit hungry people to commit rebellion, give them relief grain, mobilize young people to build new capital, or repair water conservancy and clear rivers, etc. In short, they can give them a job that can make money by using their efforts. Secondly, those who are in chaos must not show mercy. Those who take the lead must be severely punished and arrested and killed. In this way, those who followers do not investigate and only pursue the evil, which will also severely shock the hungry people."

"Of course, the key to the matter is not to suppress or appease, but also to food. If you can eat a full meal, even if you are half full, the people will not take risks and are willing to commit a crime of beheading the head."

When Li Shimin heard this, he was very heavy. Li Chao said it to the point. In fact, no one of the monarchs, ministers and prime ministers in the court could not see this.

But the problem is still that, where does so much food come from?

When Li Shimin came to ask Li Chao about suppressing the pacification, he really wanted to ask Li Chao how to make food.

At this time, Li Chao actually didn't have many good solutions. He thought about all the ways he should think of, such as catching locusts, digging wild vegetables, fishing and hunting, moving people out of disaster areas, and counterpart resettlement, such as labor-for-relief, quantitative supply of grain coupons, and the court directly controls grain transactions, etc.

These methods are indeed effective, but it is not enough to completely solve the current problems.

In 1942, 96 counties in 111 counties in Henan were affected, including 39 severely affected, with 12 million people. At that time, the entire Henan population was 30 million. In this great famine, almost three million people died of diseases caused by hunger and famine, and three million people fled Henan.

Thirty million people died, which was also caused by famine caused by drought and locust plague.

Henan Road of the Tang Dynasty, including Shandong in later generations, is definitely not as large as that of later generations. However, Henan, as the Central Plains region with the largest population density in this era, still has a large population. In addition, Hebei, Hedong, Guanzhong, Shannan, Huainan and other affected areas, the most important area of ​​the Tang Dynasty, has severe disasters.

After various disaster relief measures, many people were evacuated, but there were still many people staying in the disaster area.

The imperial court has been transporting grain to the disaster area, but when winter comes, rivers begin to freeze in many places in the north, making the already underdeveloped transportation even more difficult.

Not to mention that there is actually not much food everywhere now, even if there is food, it is difficult to transport it in.

Yang Guang conscripted Goguryeo and transported one stone of grain to Liaodong. He fed seven stones on the way. In this era, it was very difficult to transport grain from a distance. In winter, it was basically impossible to transport grain in the north.

"There are at least 10 million victims in several disaster areas today. If the current situation cannot be alleviated..." Li Shimin said this, paused for a while, and said for a long time, "according to Xuanling and Ruhui's estimates, if we cannot improve our current situation immediately, then when the famine is even more severe next year, at least 10 to 20% of the victims will starve to death."

For tens of millions of victims, one to twenty percent, that is, one or two million people will starve to death.

This is a creepy number after hearing it.

But Li Chao would not think that this was an alarmist statement. In ancient times, the ability to resist disasters was weaker and the ability to resist famine became weaker. In fact, in the ancient times, the population decreased sharply, and the population was often not large directly killed in wars, and more died from famines caused by wars.

During the wars and chaos in the Three Kingdoms and the late Jin Dynasty, the population dropped sharply by tens of millions at any time. Except for some people who were hiding their homes and fled, there were indeed many people who died, and most of them died of wartime famine.

The Tang Dynasty had just established its country and the world was unified. Especially in the Central Plains, it was completely destroyed at the end of the Sui Dynasty. The people had no savings and the officials had no storage. When encountering major disasters, they could only rely on the court.

If the court fails to provide assistance, it will either starve to death or rebel.

If one million people starve to death, they are full of bones and no rooster crowing for a hundred miles.

For the court, this is not only a matter of starving people to death. If the matter really reaches such a serious point, then countless hungry people who are screaming will be like a flood or a spark that is turbulent, flooding everything and burning everything.

How did the Sui Dynasty perish?

At the end of the great cause, countless hungry people rose up and rebelled one after another, and the world was in turmoil. The Sui army was indeed powerful, but no matter how strong it was, it could not destroy countless rebellions. One place was destroyed and dozens of them were launched.

Rebellion is a loss of mind, but having no food to eat is a death. Rebellion can at least have a few meals before dying.

If the hungry people are not afraid of death, who will be destroyed? In the end, although the Li family of Guanlong nobles replaced the Sui Dynasty, the hungry people who really buried the Sui Dynasty were the ones.

Li Shimin was a person who experienced the great turmoil at the end of the Sui Dynasty. He was very worried that the Tang Dynasty would also encounter such a result.

"Wenyuan, I need you to give me a solution immediately, how to avoid thinking about one or two million people, how to prevent my first year of Zhenguan from becoming hungry people everywhere, and wars are everywhere."

Li Chao sighed.

He said slowly, "Your Majesty, it is impossible to starve people to death in the current situation. Now we can only consider one thing, how many people starve to death and who to starve to death!"

These words were extremely cruel, but Li Shimin and Li Chao could not escape, so they could only face these cruel facts and then make cruel decisions.

"In the current situation, we only have two ways. First, continue to borrow grain from the landlords and wealthy families, or directly collect grain, let them take out all the grains and leave them only food. In this way, the court can raise as much food as possible, and the small amount of food can be used for maximum use."

Li Shimin nodded after hearing this. It was time for nothing to do. Borrowing grain from rich households like this is no different from robbing them, but now they are in a hurry. If they don’t collect grain from rich households, there is no other way.

"What about the second solution?"

"The second method is to adjust the supply of food. Priority is given to ensuring the supply of relief grain for young and strong people, and to reduce the supply of women, children and children."

Young and strong people are the easiest to rebel, so the court had to find ways to concentrate all young and strong people to work for relief, so that they could work under the supervision of the government and give them food. However, the food was limited, and it would be unrealistic to want everyone to eat full.

Even if everyone is half full, it is difficult now.

Now we can only further reduce the food supply. Young and strong people need to reduce it, while elderly and weak women need to reduce it more.

Doing so may make these old and weaker people more likely to starve to death, which is very cruel. But just like the customs in many places, when the elderly are old, they will enter the mountain by themselves. In fact, entering the mountain means going to the mountain to die.

“Is there no better way?”

"Give the old and weak some food, and then let them find a way out, allowing them to leave their hometown and eat in other places." Li Chao said.

The so-called eating is actually begging, but now it is a great famine, with thousands of miles of disaster areas. If you want to have a meal to eat? The way to make a living is actually giving up on them.

"Let me think about it again!"
Chapter completed!