The rice that had been soaked in dirty water for a day had lost its nutrients. After cleaning, the rice was no longer delicious, but these soldiers still ate the rice they had fished out.

The flood flowed down the Yangtze River, and Jiangnan also ushered in a once-in-a-century flood. However, because Wang Quan was well prepared in Jiangnan, the gentry of Jiangnan had allocated Li Guodong before. Moreover, because of Lu Xiangsheng's trust in Li Guodong, Wang Quan's engineers did not encounter any resistance when building water conservancy projects in Jiangnan. Moreover, Jiangnan gentry was also prepared to deal with floods, so the losses caused to Jiangnan this once-in-a-century flood were minimal.

Due to the failure of some Huguang gentry, the loss of grain production in Huguang has been considerable. After the flood, the already high grain prices rose again, and the rice prices in the north rose to an astonishing price of thirty taels of silver per stone!

In fact, Li Guodong has reduced the losses of the flood in Huguang to a minimum. Judging from the loss, the price of grain cannot reach a high price of 30 taels per stone. What does that mean? How many ordinary people have a living expenses per year only one tael of silver! Thirty taels of grain per stone is equivalent to the price of grain per stone, which is equivalent to the living expenses of an ordinary person for thirty years! The price of grain has indeed risen to the sky.

The flood in Huguang is regarded by many profiteers as a good opportunity to make a fortune! It is those profiteers who fuel the fire, which has pushed the price of grain to an unprecedented sky-high price!

All parts of North China, especially the capital area, are covered with dark yellow clouds, with strong winds and gray sand. The sun is pale and appears and disappears. Shops on the streets are closed. People's faces are not visible a few feet away. During the day, lights and candles must be lit in every house. Everyone thinks this is a terrible disaster, which is a "earth disaster" in the five elements, and Chongxie himself is even more afraid, thinking that this disaster is a "change of heaven" and a matter of national destiny. He was restless in the Qianqing official and went to Fengxian Hall to burn incense and pray to his ancestors, asking his ancestors to bless his country.

The strong wind blew for two days, and on the third day, the wind stopped and the weather was clear. The temperature suddenly became cold, just like the severe winter. In May, the palace actually needed some charcoal to keep warm!

Emperor Chongzhen walked into the Qianqing Palace and looked at the memorial that had just been sent in and his face turned gray.

At present, Jiangbei, Huguang, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Hebei... Half of the Ming Dynasty, there were heavy famines everywhere, with rebellions everywhere, with tens of thousands of large stocks, followed by thousands of small stocks, and hundreds of small stocks everywhere. There were also famines and riots in the south of the Yangtze River, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and other places, with grain prices rising, and there were hundreds of people constantly robbing grain to cause trouble.

"God! Why can't you move the rain that has been falling a little more in the south to the north?" Emperor Chongzhen raised his head in grief and looked up at the sky.

Since he ruled over the country, the situation has become worse and worse, and now there is almost no quiet land.

Although the memorial sent by Yang Sichang was invincible for the Agate Mountain, Zhang Xianzhong still did not kill or capture it. Zuo Liangyu and He Renlong were unwilling to take advantage of the victory and pursue the troops and refused to move forward. According to Yang Sichang's selection, the situation of owing wages to the army was serious and the morale of the army was very unstable. Although there was a turning point in the military, if the military funds were not raised, it might be a big failure in the suppression of the bandits. If this opportunity was lost, there would be no chance to completely wipe out the bandits in the future.

"Only when the military pay is settled, can the troops be strictly supervised to conquer the Japanese and fight against the Japanese, so that the thieves will not have a chance to breathe, and they will be surrounded at the junction of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Hubei, and they can also encourage the soldiers to sweep the Shangluo Mountain in one fell swoop. But where does the pay come from? But now, there is a great disaster in the world, and no additional pay can be sent to the people." Chongzhen shed tears.

The latter memorial was sent by Hong Chengchou, saying that Jiannu outside the pass was raising his energy and preparing to launch a war, and that he might invade the Ming Dynasty at any time.

"Silver, the national treasury has no money, how should we live this life?" Chongzhen swept away the dragon case, and the memorials piled up like mountains were swept to the ground.

Wang Chengen stepped forward and said, "Emperor, the flood in Huguang is actually controlled by Wu Weibo, and the losses are less than half of the memorials of the local officials! It is all the gentry and the tyrants who are in love with the tyrants and take the opportunity to make disasters and wealth."

"Is this happening?" Chongzhen asked with wide red eyes.

Wang Chengen took out two memorials from his sleeve and presented them with both hands: "The Emperor, this is the memorial of Li Guodong, the No. 1 Wuwei and Wang Quan, deputy chief minister of Huai'an. Please check it out."

Chongzhen opened the memorial and looked through it carefully. Then he remembered that Li Guodong and Wang Quan had submitted a memorial last year, and they wanted to use the victims to form a engineering team to go to Huguang and Jiangnan to build water conservancy projects, because there may be major floods this year. In these two memorials, the losses in Huguang and Jiangnan were introduced in detail, and the flood situation was described. In fact, Wang Quan's Huai Army did a good job in this flood control work. The losses in Jiangnan were minimal, and Huguang's losses were also controlled to the minimum level.

"They actually deceived me!" Emperor Chongzhen was furious.

In fact, since Chongzhen was deceived by civil servants and weakened the factory guards, he had lost his eyes and ears. The source of information depends entirely on the memorials of officials. Huguang gentry and grain merchants unified the caliber. Only Wang Quan, who came from outside, dared to submit the truth to the court, but Wang Quan's memorial did not pass through the cabinet, but was sent directly to Wang Chengen. If sent to the cabinet, the unscrupulous merchants would soon know.

Now Chongzhen could not even issue an imperial edict to investigate the unscrupulous businessman. Once such an imperial edict was issued, it was directly rejected in the cabinet.

Only when a person is ordered to be captured is required, it must be supported by strong internal ministers and factory guards to achieve it, and to issue a general order that does not require the cabinet to be sealed.

At this time, Wang Chengen's Sili Supervisor was too weak, and the East Factory was completely abolished. Luo Yangxing, the commander of the Jinyiwei and the left governor, was basically a husky, and had a good relationship with the civil servant group.

In the end, Emperor Chongzhen could not think of any way to deal with the lack of money.

In fact, if Li Guodong was willing to take action, he could still help Chongzhen lower the grain prices in the north and help Chongzhen get some money. However, he was really unwilling to do such a thankless thing. He spent money and offends the gentry in the world. Anyway, the Ming Dynasty could no longer support it. He just waited for the rebel army to break through the capital and then took Emperor Chongzhen to the south. He gave up the already festering Central Plains and Northwest region, let the Qing Dynasty and the bandits kill each other in the Central Plains, return to the south to develop, and seek opportunities for the Northern Expedition.

As long as you go to the south, the Qing army can suffer heavy losses with the power of the navy.

Li Guodong had a plan to eat Duoduo in Yangzhou. He was sure that he could use the terrain and redesign it to annihilate 200,000 Qing troops in Yangzhou.

At this time, Li Guodong had been camping in Kaifeng. He sent cavalry from time to time to go around, gathered the hungry people everywhere, took the hungry people outside Kaifeng City, and then waited for the Huai Army to send people to pick them up.

The flood in the south has passed, and the Engineer Corps has been transferred back to Shandong and is undergoing intense summer farming in Shandong. Last year, the winter wheat planting season was missed. This year, the spring of this year, some sweet potatoes were swollen, and there were still large areas of farmland empty. After the Engineer Corps came back, they began to plant corn.

The growth period of corn is 90 days to harvest, which is shorter than sweet potatoes. When corn is planted in summer, it is just about to harvest in autumn, and winter wheat can be planted. As long as the autumn corn harvest is harvested, the refugees arranged by Li Guodong to Shandong will no longer need to take the grain of Jinyang and Huai troops, and the grain of the engineering troops will be self-sufficient.

After completing the summer farming operation, it will be a period of slack farming period. At that time, the engineering troops will strengthen the castle and conduct military training to prepare for the upcoming Qing army's entry into the pass.
Chapter completed!