The sound of the thunderous bell in the palace late at night woke up more than Zhu Yunwen alone. The quiet Chang'an Street suddenly started to light up every family, followed by a crowd of people running up and overturned.

The first thing Yang Shiqi did after waking up was to wear official uniforms and then ordered his servants to prepare chariots and horses.

"The person on duty in Wenhua Palace today is Jie Dashen. He shouldn't dare to hit the bell."

Walking out of the mansion, Yang Shiqi looked west, and almost every household in Beijing ran out of the street, looking out in the direction of the palace.

"This is the first time that your Majesty has been ascending the throne for more than ten years. Apart from the New Year's Eve, something great must have happened."

Xia Yuanji came over and greeted Yang Shiqi, frowned: "Who will meet the saint?"

During this time, many officials had gathered around Yang Shiqi, including nobles and generals from the Five Military Palaces, who also came to inquire about the news, and everyone was curious.

"I didn't see the shock."

It was Wang Qian who said something, and everyone realized that Yan Zhen, the Minister of Industry and Commerce, had not shown up until now, so the person who entered the palace to face the saint was naturally sure.

"I've met the King of Yan."

At this time, Zhu Di also came out of the mansion and bowed to him.

"What happened?"

Zhu Di frowned and looked at Yang Shiqi: "Now, our Ming Dynasty, China and abroad are all moving forward rapidly, and we are winning the victory. How come we suddenly even make a fuss about hitting the bell late at night."

The bell outside the Qianqing Gate could not be hit casually. If it hits the bell, it means that it must face the saint. No matter what the emperor is doing, it must show up. If it is not a major matter related to the country's foundation, it will become a trick of the emperor.

Yang Shiqi shook his head and said, "I don't know, but I guess His Majesty will be summoned soon and you will know when you enter the palace."

Sure enough, a sound of footsteps sounded from the east and gradually approached. The people led by Yang Shiqi calmed down and the chattering and the chirping sounds disappeared in an instant.

As everyone expected, the emperor would definitely summon all his ministers for such a big thing.

"Your Majesty ordered a few cabinet masters to enter the palace."

The eunuch who was delivering the order stopped and shouted, "The rest of the ministers should go to bed early and go to Fengtian Hall to hold a grand ceremony tomorrow morning."

It seems that something really happened.

The four of them felt a deep heart. After looking at each other, they hurried towards the palace and were led all the way into the Qianqing Palace. When the four of them arrived, Zhu Yunwen, Yan Zhenzhi, and Xie Jin were all there in the main hall.

After seeing the courtesy, Zhu Di spoke first.

"Your Majesty, what happened?"

"Let Yan Qing say it."

Zhu Yunwen pinched his eyebrows and looked very depressed.

Several people looked at Yan Zhenzhi, who sighed and said in a deep voice: "Tonight, the head of the Zhejiang Federation of Industry and Commerce wrote me a letter saying that several major grain merchants in Zhejiang have joined forces to burn all the grain storage in their respective warehouses."

"Burn grain?"

Xia Yuanji's reaction was the most intense: "Zhejiang has lived a good life for too long, and it won't be able to keep its brains in a mess. The dynasty has just had a few years of wealthy life. Even if the granary cannot be stored, it can be sold to the people at a low price or used to make wine. How could it be burned like this?"

"Can they be these businessmen want to take the opportunity to raise prices and make money from the people?"

Wang Qian raised a question: "If this is the case, then everyone who should be arrested will be beheaded."

Yan Zhenzhi smiled bitterly and shook his head: "If this is the case, it will be easy. They burned grain, but the price of grain is still controlled, and they did not even increase a penny, and they even lowered the price to sell it."

The merchants only burned their own grain, not the grain storage in the official warehouse, and after the burning, they did not sell the remaining grain at a price. No matter from any perspective, they did not violate the law.

"No need to guess, it must be that the place knew about India."

Yang Shiqi spoke: "They are worried that after the arrival of India's food, the market's food prices will decline rapidly, and even be worthless, so they do this to minimize their losses."

Once Indian grains reach Quanzhou, these grain merchants will be completely ruined and will lose money, and at most half of the food is burned.

At this moment, another eunuch ran in outside the hall, holding a memorial book in his hand.

"Your Majesty, sent by Tongzhengsi."

Shuangxi took it and planned to pass it to Zhu Yunwen, but saw the latter raised his hand: "Take it to Mr. Yang."

Yang Shiqi took it with both hands, hurriedly tear it apart, and his face changed drastically.

"Everyone, half a month ago, the storage warehouses of major grain merchants in Guangdong also fell into fire, and more than two million stones of grain were burned."

"It's a traitor, it's a sin."

Xia Yuanji cursed with his heart and said, "At that time, if the Taizu could have a sip of surplus grain in his house, if the Jiangnan and Jiangbei did not starve to death, there would not be the Ming Dynasty I am today.

Even now, many people in the southwest and northwest have no rice to put in the pot, waiting hungrily for even a bite of brown rice thin bran. But these bastards in Zhejiang and Guangdong have burned millions of stones of essence for their own selfishness. I really want to peel them all up and get cramped in such a waste of food.”

"They're not burning wrong."

At this time, Zhu Yunwen suddenly spoke, causing all the discussions and rebukes to come to an abrupt end.

"Not only do they want to burn, we also want to burn, and we have to burn more than they do."

Xia Yuanji was stunned. No one understood the emperor's meaning, so Yan Zhen sighed.

"If you don't burn food, the world will be over."

"Just just now, Yan Qing said that our Ming Dynasty had a great disaster of overturning the universe. I deeply believe that it was not only overturning the universe, but also possibly even a disaster of the country's demise."

Zhu Yunwen walked down the imperial bed and sat next to several people, telling the reason at close range.

"In my Ming Ding, there are more than 60 million people who rely on the ground to make a living. The quality of their lives depends on how much the food harvested every year can be sold. Once India's food is imported, even if they go to sell the food, no one will collect the food.

Grain is no longer just a matter of price, but has become an output without any commercial value. If the grain cannot be sold, the people can only keep it for themselves, but they have lost the way to exchange for money. Without money, they cannot afford salt, oil, sauce and vinegar, let alone buy clothes or other items.

If you don’t eat salt for a long time, you will die.

If this continues, the people will 'escape' the land, do not do production and farming, and more than 60 million people do nothing. If there is no other place to accommodate these people in the Ming Dynasty, they will all become refugees. By that time, the Ming Dynasty will die in the second lifetime."

In later generations, food had a so-called shelf life system, which everyone knows, but you may not know much about the predecessor of the shelf life system.

After the first batch of grain from the East India Company was transported back to the John Cattle, it led to the bankruptcy of a large number of farmers. At the same time, countless self-cultivated farmers who rely on the land to live fled from production and the land began to become deserted.

At this time, John Cattle formulated a policy that all stored food, bread, butter and other food items must be destroyed if they exceed a certain period of time. In fact, is this batch of food really deteriorated and inedible?

Of course, this is impossible. It is stipulated that they are forcibly defined as expired food and thus destroyed.

This is the predecessor of the shelf life system.

Whether it is the John Cattle local or the East India Company, more than tens of millions of tons of grain will be destroyed every year, and one ton is about 12 or 3 stones, or hundreds of millions of stones of grain.

"It was because I was wrong to consider it, so I had such a big hidden danger. Fortunately, we discovered it early and the consequences have not been produced yet."

Zhu Yunwen praised Yan Zhenzhi for his timely report, saying to everyone: "Ming Dynasty has not yet been prepared for this, nor has the ability to completely digest this batch of grain, nor has the ability to transform tens of millions of self-cultivated farmers after they are out of production. At this time, once the fully mature grain production and sales system is destroyed, it will be a subversion of the world.

My plan is not to bring back this batch of Indian food this year, but to take it to Taiwan and burn it.”

"Your Majesty, this is hundreds of millions of stones of food."

Xia Yuanji almost died suddenly on the spot and said sadly: "The 31st year of the Hongwu Dynasty added up to the grain and taxes, but it's just such a number. Just like that, it's all burned?"

"burn!"

Zhu Yunwen did not feel any distress at all, and even his expression did not change: "Not only does this year burn, but next year, as long as you can't digest it every year, you will burn it all without leaving a single or two."

"Then your Majesty, why not transport these foods to the northwest and southwest?"

Xia Yuanji still wanted to keep a little bit: "At present, there are still hundreds of thousands of people in Gansu, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, and hundreds of thousands of people are hungry and poverty-stricken. Let's leave 10 million stones to support these three provinces. Wouldn't the people in the world tell His Majesty the benevolence and righteousness?"

"Weizhe."

Before Zhu Yunwen could speak, Yang Shiqi had already explained this: "Didn't you hear the words of not worrying about being alone and unequal? ​​The people are restrained by the poor territories and difficulty in filling their stomachs. The court used labor instead of relief and organized the people to build factories and mine mines, so that the people can still have money to buy grain and work hard.

Once the grain is free of charge, the people will be lazy and tired, and the three provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou will have no motivation for progress and development. Moreover, the people will know that even if they do not farm, the court will have the ability to support them. Who is willing to continue to bury their heads and sweat in the fields all day long?

As a result, the situation returned to the situation where refugees were everywhere, and a large number of people began to flee the land, which was a way to cause disaster and destroy the country."

"So, since that's the case, why not just stay in India?"

The few people frowned and looked at Xie Jin who raised this young view.

The latter immediately shut up and knew that he was saying an ignorant childish word.

"If you give a dog a bone every day and give it ninety-nine days, and you don't give it on the 100th day, it will bark at you.

And it’s also a dog, you scold it every day, but give it a bone on the 100th day and it will wag your tail at you.”

Zhu Yunwen told a brief story: "Ming Dynasty cannot consume these foods, so we can impose less taxes from India so that the Indian people can live comfortably. When our Ming Dynasty has the ability to consume these foods, we want to impose this tax. Will the Indian people still be willing?

Therefore, we must take away these grains and not keep them locally. Even if they are burned, they cannot stay locally."

"What about the solution?"

It is not a long-term solution to maintain the stability of the domestic grain production and sales system by burning grain. When Xia Yuanji thinks that he burns hundreds of millions of stones of grain every year, he feels dizzy.

"First acquire the land."

Yan Zhen went through Xia Yuanji's problem directly and said: "The court came forward to expropriate land, prompting the people to leave the land to engage in other work, increasing the output of goods required in daily life, and gradually turning self-cultivated farmers into handicraftsmen, craftsmen, textile workers, and breeders, step by step releasing a large amount of agricultural productivity and transforming them into other industries' productivity.

Including the expansion of wineries, the consumption of grain will increase and the demand will increase, which will stabilize or even rise in grain prices, increase the income of self-cultivated farmers, and the prices required for other consumption in life will become cheap and continue to decline, including wine, salt, oil, sauce and vinegar, daily necessities, meat food, and tens of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty will have a good life.

Until the grain-producing lands such as India and Siam were transported into the Ming Dynasty, the food that was sent to the Ming Dynasty began to seamlessly connect with the local grain production and sales system and stabilize, at that time, I thought that the people of the Ming Dynasty could even live a life of meat every meal. Even if they could not do this, they would not be stingy and unable to come up with money when they wanted to eat."

The benefits of owning a colony to the colony are undoubtedly huge, but the requirements for the colony are also particularly high. It must be a high-quality leek land. Ordinary leeks and even rebellious leeks will lose their value as a colony.

The success of the local industrial revolution of John Bull was due to the East India Company's excessive tax collection, which made the entire local people live in a relatively comfortable environment with low prices and costs.
To be continued...