Forced to be a concubine, I went to my husband's place to become a wealthy merchant

Chapter 307

Ye Xi’s crop yields were actually also affected.

Although it is a drought-resistant crop, it also needs water, so it will also suffer losses, but the losses are not as serious as those water-consuming crops.

Her expansion plans fell through for a while, but she felt relieved.

Although there were a lot of losses, the people are now in dire straits. She has nothing to complain about and only hopes that this natural disaster will pass as soon as possible.

The imperial court began to open its granaries to provide relief, but because of the war on the border and the principle that the country could not be broken, the relief food the people received was not only of poor quality but also very little, so many people could not get enough to eat.

Some big cities were not greatly affected, except for rising food prices, such as the power center like the capital and places close to water systems like Hangzhou.

However, the cultivated land in these places is limited, and the crops require a long period of growth, so the food shortage problem caused by the drought has not been solved.

Problems arose after a long time.

The relief food that people in some places received was either getting less and less or even non-existent. In order to avoid starving to death, the bolder ones began to instigate people to rob granaries.

For a time, people in many places in the Great Zhou Dynasty were snatching food.

The imperial court sent local garrisons to suppress the riot, and the entire Great Zhou was caught in a vortex caused by food shortages.

The northern border is closer to the capital, and the soldiers on the battlefield there have never lacked food. After all, the emperor is also worried that he will suffer if he cannot defend the northern border.

But the Western Territory did not have such benefits. The imperial court issued a secret decree asking the military leaders in the Western Territory to solve the food problem on their own.

If the means violated the law, the court would reduce the sentence as appropriate. In fact, to put it bluntly, it would allow the soldiers in the Western Border to generously obtain their own food, with no restrictions on the means used.

The idea is that if someone causes trouble afterwards, the imperial court will take action to make the matter smaller.

In the face of national crisis, the imperial court no longer cared about its reputation.

Wei Jue felt quite heavy-hearted when he received the secret decree. The imperial court seemed to have given a solution, but it was of no use.

It is possible to let the soldiers go to the people's homes and forcibly collect food, but the key point is that at this time, if the people have surplus food, there is no need to starve.

Wei Jue thought of a solution. If there was really no food to eat, he could only let the soldiers capture the people's livestock and slaughter them. If that was still not enough, he would have no choice but to use that method.

In order to alleviate the shortage of military rations, he had paid out of his own pocket to let Yang Jian arrange for a batch of food to be transported to the western border.

However, it was confiscated halfway through by some officials who suspected that the merchants wanted to make money from the national crisis. He asked his direct officials to smooth things over but they were always delayed.

He asked Yang Jian to transport the grain again. The grain carts were disguised as various goods and took different land and water routes, but most of them were still intercepted.

He felt that the matter was not that simple, so he asked his secret agents to investigate.

Not long after, the secret agent sent a message saying that this move might be related to the palace, and he understood.

His Majesty has already secured the throne, and wants to follow his father's example and take advantage of the war to get rid of the Wei family.

I'm afraid that once he dies, his grandfather and young children in the capital will immediately meet him in the underworld.

In order to achieve his goal, the emperor was even willing to sacrifice 200,000 soldiers in the western border and disregard the safety of the country.

How could the Wei family have deserved to force the emperor to this point?

The food that was transported with great difficulty would not last long, so he had to make preparations in advance.

Wei Jue, who had thought of a solution, issued a military order that the people of several large cities in the western territory were not allowed to move around freely from today onwards, and anyone who wanted to move around must obtain a token.