Things in the world are impermanent, and few people have smooth sailing.

Taichang was looking forward to creating new muskets and cannons as soon as possible to sweep the world, but there was extremely bad news coming from the northwest.

This year, the drought in Guanzhong and northern Shaanxi was particularly severe, with almost no harvest of farmland. Many ordinary people became refugees and began to migrate to Guanzhong and Nanyang under Yunyang Fudi.

Alas, the natural disaster of the Little Glacier River can't escape the Ming Dynasty after all!

This natural disaster that lasted for hundreds of years was simply a nightmare of the Ming Dynasty. The temperature in northern Ming Dynasty began to slowly drop during the Hongzhi period. By the middle of Wanli, the temperature drop suddenly increased. The cold air gradually pushed the rain to the south, directly leading to continuous droughts in the north and floods in the south.

By the first year of Taichang, the drought in the northwest had actually lasted for decades, but sometimes the drought was particularly severe and sometimes mild.

The Tianqi Dynasty and Chongzhen Dynasty in history were even more amazing. At that time, it was said that there were nine droughts in the northwest of the Ming Dynasty for ten years, and the affected areas became wider and wider. First, Shaanxi, then Shanxi, and then Henan, tens of millions of people in the three northwest provinces lost their food sources and were forced to become refugees.

It can be said that this natural disaster is the direct cause of the demise of the Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty could not defeat the Jiannu with a total population of less than one million?

The problem is that the natural disaster of the Little Glacier consumed too much manpower and material resources from the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty could not do its best to deal with Jiannu!

If the refugees are extremely hungry, they will rebel. If this problem is not solved, the Ming Dynasty will surely perish!

Taichang frowned when he looked at the memorial handed over by Fuzhi of Yunyang.

How to solve this problem?

He sat there frowned and pondered for a while, and he really thought of it.

Sweet potatoes and potatoes!

In history, the natural disaster of Little Glacier actually continued until the Qing Dynasty, but the population of the Qing Dynasty achieved explosive growth through these two things, which shows how powerful these two things are.

It is rumored that sweet potatoes and potatoes were introduced from Luzon, Southeast Asia. At the beginning, they were only planted in Fujian on the southeast coast. It took decades to slowly spread to the inland and north.

I don’t know where this thing has been spread now, so it is definitely not possible to let it spread slowly. You must find high-quality seedlings to promote them vigorously, so that the food crisis should be solved.

However, the distance water cannot relieve the near fire. It will take at least a few years for sweet potatoes and potatoes to be promoted throughout the Ming Dynasty. If hundreds of thousands of refugees are not allowed to care about them, they will really rebel if they are hungry.

This kind of thing did not happen in the late Ming Dynasty. Since the Hongzhi period, rebellion of refugees often occurred. Yunyang Fuzhi was set up specifically to deal with rebellion of refugees in northwest.

The full name of Fuzhi in Yunyang is Fuzhi and other places and military affairs. The places where the Fuzhi are managed include five roads, eight prefectures and nine provinces, which are so large that they exceed any province in the Ming Dynasty. When large-scale natural disasters occur in the northwest, refugees like to flee to these places. There are millions of refugees who are rumored to have the worst drought, and millions of refugees have flocked to Fuzhi in Yunyang, the most of which is even as many as two million.

Taichang specially read various records of Yunyang Fuzhi since its establishment. Since the Hongzhi period, there have been more than ten records of refugees rebelling alone, but the scale is not very large. Basically, the Yunyang Fuzhi mobilized a large army to pacify as soon as they were in trouble.

If the refugees in the northwest rebelled again at this time, it is hard to say whether they could pacify it, because there are no large army to mobilize in the Ming Dynasty at this time!

It seems that Luo Yangxing can only send the food copied from Prince Fu's mansion to Yunyang for emergency response.

Alas, I just had some money, and it was not enough to spend it immediately.

Taichang looked at Luo Yangxing's list that sent him in a hurry two days ago, and couldn't help but sigh in his heart.

The income from confiscating the Fu Palace this time was not as much as he had imagined. The silver was only more than three million taels and the food was only more than one million stones.

King Fu shouldn't have been so "poor", but this guy has a problem with his brain, and spending money is simply scary.

There are dozens of cars of treasures, antiques, calligraphy and paintings on the list, as many as three million acres of fertile land, and as many as thousands of land deeds for houses and shops!

You should know that at this moment, the fertile land was 20 taels higher than 25 taels better. When King Fu was in the vassal state, Wanli granted him 20,000 hectares of fertile land, which is 2 million acres. The more than one million acres of extra fertile land were merged by King Fu himself after he was in the vassal state.

Even if he forced himself to buy and sell through various means, he would all merge more than one million acres of fertile land at half price, which would be more than ten million taels of silver!

There are also treasures, antiques, calligraphy and paintings, and dozens of cars are worth at least more than five million taels.

There are also houses and shops, and the goods inside are worth at least several million taels!

Problem, once these silver is spent, it will be difficult to collect it.

Who has so much money these days?

The other vassal kings would probably not be able to make up so much money if they could get all the money they could get together!

Taichang was really troubled. He was originally planning to use this money and grain to solve the Jiannu problem. Now, I don’t know how much money it will cost to provide disaster relief alone.

One million stones are enough to eat hundreds of thousands of refugees for a few months, and more than three million taels of silver is only enough to pay for more than 100,000 troops in Liaodong for a year. Xiong Tingbi said that if he wanted to deal with the Jiannu, there would be no need to think about it without a 200,000 army. You must know that during the Battle of Sarhu, the Ming Dynasty gathered nearly 200,000 troops, but he still lost!

Alas, money, where can I find money?

In desperation, Taichang could only order people to use the account books of the treasury and internal treasury to see if he could increase his income source.

I didn't know if I didn't look at it, but I really scared him.

The income of the Ming Dynasty court and the royal family was originally very large.

For example, land tax and labor service were the main sources of income from the Ming Dynasty's treasury. After the implementation of the One Whip Law, these two taxes alone would be about 4 million taels a year, which was enough to pay the salary of all officials.

For example, taxes such as salt, iron, tea, etc. are more than three million taels a year, which is enough to support the food and salary of more than 100,000 border troops.

There are also royal villages, mines, Jiangxi official kilns, Jiangnan weaving, foreign trade, etc. These can be regarded as royal income. In the past, I could easily earn more than 2 million taels of income in a year.

However, now, the taxes for salt classes, iron classes and tea classes are reduced by more than half, and they can earn more than one million taels a year. Even the border troops in Liaodong cannot survive. The annual income of royal private property in various imperial villages, mines, Jiangxi official kilns, Jiangnan weaving and other royal property is less than 300,000 taels, and the inner warehouse is almost empty!

What's going on?

Taichang looked at the mountain of account books in front of him, and a hint of madness gradually appeared in his eyes.

He decided to go to Jiangnan in person to see what was going on!

The salt farms of the imperial court, various large-scale mining mines, as well as tea, porcelain transfer and transactions, etc., were almost all concentrated in Jiangnan. As long as he went to see them in person, he would definitely find out the reason.

He knew very well that these silver was either swallowed by court officials or eunuchs in the palace. Even these people were likely to have joined forces to form a huge interest group, specifically embezzling court taxes and royal income!

Therefore, he had to do this by himself. If he asked the court officials or eunuchs in the palace to investigate, he would probably not be able to find out anything.

No matter what, he must go to Jiangnan as soon as possible. Even if it is not for money, just for the seedlings of sweet potatoes and potatoes, he has to go there.

Also, the treasures, antiques, calligraphy and paintings copied from Fu Wang Mansion will definitely not be sold in the capital. Who in the capital dares to buy these things under his nose? Isn’t it clear that he is a corrupt official?

It would be different if it was taken to Jiangnan to sell. Jiangnan was so rich that he could find a big vendor as an agent. The treasures, antiques, calligraphy and paintings worth millions of taels would probably be turned into cash in a few months.

Thinking of this, Taichang couldn't help but whisper to the door: "Transfer to Xu Guangqi, Bi Maokang."
Chapter completed!