Chapter 436: Grain Bank’s Death
On the eighth day of the first lunar month, the general's office opened.

Yang Zhengshan, wearing a thick fur coat, strode into the lobby.

"Send an order, ordering all the lieutenants to come to the General's Mansion on the 14th day of the first lunar month to discuss matters!"

As soon as he entered the study, Yang Zhengshan gave the order directly.

Fighting against natural disasters is definitely not an easy task. Liaoyuan and Pingyuan provinces have a population of more than 10 million. A severe drought may not turn everyone into refugees, but it will at least turn millions of people into refugees.

Once a drought occurs, with food and water shortages, people must leave their homeland and migrate to other places if they want to survive.

Even if only a part of the refugees came to Chongshan Town, that would be hundreds of thousands or even millions of refugees.

What Yang Zhengshan has to do is to provide resettlement services for these refugees.

"Yes!" The personal attendant responded and immediately ran out of the study to convey Yang Zhengshan's order to the personal guard camp.

Yang Zhengshan sat at the desk, thought for a while, then picked up a pen and paper and started writing.

These days he has been thinking about his next plan. In fact, he has already thought of the general plan, and all that remains is to assign the tasks.

The most important things in disaster relief are food and water.

As for water sources, Chongshan Town will not be affected too severely and the Yinghe River will not be cut off. There is almost no disaster in the north and there is no need to worry about water issues.

Therefore, the biggest problem he faced was food.

The current amount of food stored in Chongshan Town is definitely not enough to feed millions of refugees, so the first thing to do is to buy food, large quantities, and without regard for the consequences.

"Somebody come!"

"My Lord!" A personal attendant walked in from outside the door.

"Send someone to deliver this letter to Tenglongwei and give it to Lord Wu Chongzhe!" Yang Zhengshan ordered.

"Here!"

The attendant responded and left the study with the letter.

Then, Yang Zhengshan called another guard and ordered, "Go and inform the six major merchants that I will discuss matters with them on the 16th day of the first lunar month. Ask their heads of households to come as soon as possible. If the heads of households cannot come, then send someone who can make the decision!"

"Here!"

Several personal followers ran out of Yang Zhengshan's study one after another, and soon teams of soldiers from the Royal Guard Camp rode out of Chongshan Pass and dispersed in all directions.

Yang Zhengshan's actions were not over yet. After arranging things, he immediately went to the Finance and Grain Department to check the silver and grain reserves in the General's Mansion.

"My Lord, this is the grain stored in the General's Mansion last year!"

"My Lord, this is the money that came into the General's Mansion last year!"

The clerk from the Finance and Grain Department placed two thick stacks of account books in front of Yang Zhengshan.

Yang Zhengshan nodded slightly and opened the grain account book to look at it first.

In fact, he had seen these account books years ago, but he did not pay too much attention to them at the time and only remembered the rough numbers.

Last year, the amount of grain and fodder stored in the General's Mansion was not much. It was basically the batch of grain and fodder sent by the Dusi Yamen, which was about 300,000 shi.

If refugees come to Chongshan Town, Chongshan Town must guarantee one year's food supply for the refugees.

From cultivating farmland to sowing and then to harvesting, the refugees will have to wait until at least September or October next year to become self-sufficient.

During this period, all the food for the refugees had to be provided by the General's Office.

If an adult wants to have enough food and clothing, he or she may need at least two kilograms of food a day.

That is to say, at least 700 kilograms of grain, or nearly six stone of grain, is needed a year.

The consumption of the elderly, the weak, women and children is smaller. If we average it out, each person needs at least one stone of grain per year.

If Chongshan Town wants to accommodate one million people, it will need at least three million shi of grain.

This is a number estimated by Yang Zhengshan, which is definitely not accurate. After the refugees are settled, they will definitely find food for themselves, such as digging wild vegetables, catching game, etc., and they can also earn money to buy food themselves.

But no matter what, Yang Zhengshan has already planned to prepare food according to this quantity.

That is three million shi of grain!

This is definitely an extremely huge number for Chongshan Town.

The current grain price in Liaodong is two taels per shi, and three million shi is six million taels. However, if Chongshan Town purchases a large amount of grain, the price of grain will definitely rise.

Moreover, Yang Zhengshan also plans to buy grain from Jiangnan, Li Sheng Dynasty and De Sheng Dynasty, and the price may be higher.

"Eight million taels!"

Yang Zhengshan narrowed his eyes slightly, feeling a little heavy-hearted.

Currently, there are less than two million taels in the account of the General's Office.

Last year, the General's Office had an income of more than five million taels of silver, including four million taels of bonds, nearly one million taels of income from the glass business, and the remaining miscellaneous income from other aspects of the General's Office.

This year, the glass business will continue to expand. Yang Zhengshan estimates that there will be no problem in earning three million yuan, but it will take time to expand glass production. In the first half of the year, he will probably only earn one million taels. It will have to wait until the second half of the year for glass production to increase.

The problem is that Yang Zhengshan has needed the money for hundreds of years, and he simply cannot wait until the second half of the year.

"Issue bonds again!" Yang Zhengshan frowned.

Issuing bonds is the best way to obtain a large amount of silver and money in a short period of time, but the silver obtained in exchange for the bonds must be repaid. The annual interest rate is 36%, which more than doubles in three years.

If you borrow one million now, you will have to pay back more than two million in three years.

Last year's bonds will have to be repaid in two years, more than 8 million.

If I borrow another 4 million this year, I will have to repay more than 8 million in three years.

Repaying more than 8 million for two consecutive years is unsustainable even if the glass business is profitable.

"We can't issue any more bonds, otherwise the General's Office will be dragged down by debt repayment!"

Yang Zhengshan rejected the idea of ​​issuing bonds again.

If those who bought the bonds were all merchants, he could still default on his debts, but many officials and soldiers in Chongshan Town bought a large number of bonds.

If he couldn't pay back the debt by then, his soldiers would turn against him, and he couldn't take that risk.

However, the bonds could not be issued, but he could still borrow money.

To be precise, it is attracting deposits!
Chongshan Money House!

When Yang Zhengshan left the Finance Department, he was already planning to expand Chongshan Money House.

The time is a bit tight, but it should be able to attract a lot of deposits.

Yang Zhengshan has decided to move the bank from his previous life to this world.

Not only is there no management fee for depositing money, but interest is also paid. This is an advantage, and with this advantage it should be able to attract a lot of deposits.

The deposit period can be divided into current, three months, six months and one year.

There is no interest on current accounts, which is equivalent to issuing silver bills.

Take the Datong Money House of the Zhang family in Liaoan as an example. If you deposit 100 taels of silver in the Datong Money House, you have to pay a management fee of one tael of silver, which is 1%.

If you exchange it for silver bills, you will have to pay the money house three taels of silver for every one hundred taels, because the silver bills involve exchange in other places.

However, the circulation of silver bills was limited to certain regions. For example, the silver bills of Datong Bank could only be circulated in Liaodong, because there were no Datong Bank stores outside Liaodong. The Zhang family in Liaoan also had bill exchanges, which specialized in bill business. There were bill exchanges in prosperous places such as Kyoto and Jiangnan.

However, Chongshan Money House definitely cannot do bill of exchange business. Firstly, it is too troublesome, and secondly, it takes time to do bill of exchange business. What Yang Zhengshan lacks most now is time.

Therefore, Yang Zhengshan only planned to let Chongshan Money House do two businesses: accepting deposits and issuing silver bills.

In fact, the two businesses he wanted to do were not much different from issuing bonds, except that bonds had a long term and high interest rates, while deposits and silver bills had more time limits, or even no time limits, and had extremely low interest rates.

Yang Zhengshan is not a finance major and his understanding of banking business is only superficial.

What he wanted to do was not to develop financial business in this world, but to use the chicken to lay eggs, that is, to use the depositors' money to buy food for the refugees and resettle the refugees.

There are certain risks involved, such as the possibility of a bank run, but Yang Zhengshan feels that he can still bear this risk.

After making up his mind, Yang Zhengshan immediately began to make preparations.

Attracting deposits does not require much preparation, but issuing bank notes does require some preparation.

Silver bills need to rely on money houses, and people have to have a place to exchange them for silver.

Yang Zhengshan planned to circulate the silver notes issued by Chongshan Money House throughout Chongshan Town, so he had to ensure that there were branches of Chongshan Money House in several major cities in Chongshan Town.

To this end, he directly set up a department in the general's mansion that was specifically responsible for Chongshan Money House, namely the Money House Department, with one chief clerk, two deputy chief clerks, and several chief clerks.

Zhao Dong, the clerk who was originally in charge of Chongshan Money House in Guancheng, was promoted to Dushi, specifically in charge of money house affairs.

Li Hai, the head of the Ministry of Finance, was transferred to serve as deputy director, responsible for the supervision of money shops.

Wang Xie, the sentry leader from the Royal Guard Battalion, was appointed as the deputy chief. Wang Xie selected a thousand elite soldiers from the five battalions of the town flag to form a money house guard battalion.

The main task of the money house guard camp is to escort silver and money and crack down on crimes against money houses.

In addition, a group of clerks were selected from each department to serve as the heads of the money house department. These heads would later become the managers of Chongshan Money House in various cities.

After several busy days, Yang Zhengshan finally built the framework of the money house.

The fourteenth of the first lunar month.

The six lieutenant generals of Chongshan Town gathered at Chongshan Pass.

In addition to the six lieutenant generals, Yang Zhengshan also invited Governor Pang Tang, Commander-in-Chief Ning Qinghe, Provincial Governor Song Ying, Censor Zhang Cong, and garrison eunuch Zhang Mingzhong to the general's mansion.

In the lobby of the General's Mansion, Yang Zhengshan exchanged some simple courtesies with everyone, then coughed and said, "Next, let's talk business!"

The hall suddenly became quiet and everyone's faces turned serious.

Although Yang Zhengshan had not told him what they were going to discuss today, judging from the scene before him, something very important must be discussed today.

This time, Yang Zhengshan summoned all the high-level officials of Chongshan Town, even the eunuch Zhang Mingzhong who was in charge of the town, and it was obviously not for some trivial matter.

Yang Zhengshan also had a solemn look on his face, and said, "I called all of you here today because I have a few things I want you to do!"

"The first thing is to store food!"

"We need to store up food as much as possible. The more the better, at any cost!"

"This Marquis has decided to purchase three million shi of grain in the name of the General's Office before August!"

Yang Zhengshan said in a firm voice.

When everyone heard this, they all looked shocked.

"Three million stones? Lord Marquis, are you kidding?" Pang Tang couldn't help but ask.

"No, I will not joke about this matter!" Yang Zhengshan said.

Pang Tang stared at him and couldn't help but take a deep breath.

"Three million shi, that would cost seven or eight million taels of silver, or even more!"

Everyone also looked at Yang Zhengshan with horror.

"I know, but we have to do this!" Yang Zhengshan said.

"Why?"

Yang Zhengshan lowered his eyes slightly and said, "I have a feeling that there will be a severe drought in Liaoyuan and Pingyuan provinces this year, and it is very likely that there will be no harvest!"

His telepathic ability couldn't be explained clearly, but he decided to force an explanation anyway.

In fact, it is not impossible to predict the weather and meteorological changes.

Whether it is the Imperial Astronomical Observatory in the court or the old farmers in the fields, they can all predict weather and meteorological changes.

It’s just that their predictions cannot be 100% accurate and there are large deviations.

"This~~" Pang Tang naturally couldn't believe Yang Zhengshan's premonition, but he didn't know how to refute it for a moment. He couldn't just say that you are talking nonsense!
Yang Zhengshan said calmly: "I have been farming in the countryside for more than 20 years and have some experience in predicting weather changes. Based on my past experience, I found that there is a high possibility of drought this year."

"Master Pang, perhaps you haven't noticed that this winter's snow is much less than last year's. Last year's snow was continuous, the longest snowfall lasted for six days, and the snow accumulated was one foot and three inches thick. However, this year's heaviest snowfall in Chongshan Pass lasted only one day and one night, and the snow accumulated was less than four inches!"

He could not explain his ability to sense celestial phenomena, but he could use his experience and observation to prove that his words had a certain credibility.

And he was not lying. There was indeed much less snow in Chongshan Pass this year than last year.

"According to what I have learned, there is still heavy snow in the northern region this year. Black Cloud Mountain and Fuzhou City have both had several heavy snowfalls!"

"But in Liaoyuan and Pingyuan provinces, there have only been a few light snowfalls this year, which is not as good as Chongshanguan!"

"All this indicates that there will be less snow and rainfall this year, and a severe drought is inevitable!"

Yang Zhengshan said in a very affirmative tone.

Pang Tang's expression became more and more ugly, and he began to believe what Yang Zhengshan said.

"Marquis Jing'an, there are some things you can't say casually!" Zhang Mingzhong suddenly stood up and said.

Yang Zhengshan was startled, "What does Eunuch Zhang mean?"

Zhang Mingzhong looked solemn, staring at Yang Zhengshan, "Marquis Jing'an, the new emperor has just ascended the throne, and you're saying there's a severe drought. Are you trying to say the new emperor is immoral?"

Yang Zhengshan's face changed, and Pang Tang's face also became extremely gloomy in an instant. The atmosphere in the hall instantly became depressing to the extreme.

Yang Zhengshan overlooked one thing, which was the court and the people's views on natural disasters.

Once a major disaster or strange phenomenon occurs, many people will blame it on the court and the emperor, believing that the emperor's policies and morals are lacking and that God is sending down punishment as a warning to the world.

When a country is about to be defeated due to its misconduct, Heaven will first send disasters to warn it; if it does not reflect on itself, Heaven will send strange phenomena to frighten it; if it still does not change, disaster and defeat will come to it.

Therefore, after a natural disaster occurred, many people would directly advise the emperor to "cultivate virtue and avert disasters" and issue an edict of repentance to seek forgiveness from God.

Emperor Yanping has just ascended the throne, and this year is the first year of Yanping. If a drought breaks out, it is hard to say what kind of turmoil it will cause.

Droughts are often accompanied by locust plagues.

If drought and locust plague break out at the same time, it is almost equivalent to stacking up the buffs and saying that Emperor Yanping is immoral.

And now the drought has not yet occurred, but Yang Zhengshan has predicted it. Isn't this equivalent to cursing Emperor Yanping?
Zhang Mingzhong used to serve in the imperial court, so he was naturally the most sensitive to such things.

When he heard Yang Zhengshan say this, his first feeling was that Yang Zhengshan was seeking death.

That’s right, this is courting death!

If Yang Zhengshan's words today were to get out and reach the ears of Emperor Yanping, it is unknown how much the Emperor would hate him. And if it got to the ears of the ministers in the court, those censors and literati would also criticize him.

(End of this chapter)