Li Chao's wolf-fighting operation went very smoothly, and the results of robbing food were quite brilliant.

In just three days, more than 500,000 stones of grain were found from the entire Jingji area. These grains were almost the same as the amount of grain that the imperial court transported from the southeast to Chang'an in a year.

Guandong was once called the country of Tianfu and a fertile land. However, by the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the Guanzhong Plain could no longer supply the demand for food in Guanzhong. As a capital, Guanzhong had a large population, especially a large number of people who did not work for production, the palace, bureaucrats, the army, and the slaves who served them, etc.

The earth is small and the people are the most powerful than the earth.

In addition, due to war, many water conservancy facilities were disrepaired, and land output decreased. As early as the time of Emperor Ping of Han, the population of Jingzhao reached 700,000. Now the Tang Dynasty is no larger than the time of Kaihuang Daye of the Sui Dynasty, but in one Chang'an, there is a population of nearly 300,000.

There are many officials, royal families, palaces, and military personnel in Chang'an City.

Just feeding officials every year will cost 500,000 stones.

This is when the tens of thousands of soldiers in Chang'an basically brought their own clothes and food, otherwise they would consume more food.

The imperial court now transports hundreds of thousands of stones of grain from the southeast every year. This is just the official grain transported into Beijing. In fact, the imperial court cannot supply grain to the land rent in Guanzhong to meet the needs of the palace, officials, etc., and there is a grain shortage of hundreds of thousands of stones every year.

The commercial grain in Guanzhong is also unable to meet the living needs of the people in Guanzhong. At least millions of stones of grain are needed to be transported from other places every year to Beijing, or even more.

Transporting grain from Shuzhong, Shannan, Jianghuai, Henan, Hedong, Hebei, Jiangnan and other places to Beijing is all about transporting grain by private merchants, which is a private business behavior.

Even in the most prosperous middle and late Kaihuang period of the Sui Dynasty, once Guanzhong encountered famine, the emperor had to take the army of officials to Dongdu to eat. A large number of Guanzhong people had to flee.

Why?

There was a lot of food in the Sui Dynasty. There were several large granaries, and I couldn’t finish it. At the end of the Sui Dynasty, the anti-army army could get food for hundreds of thousands of people by robbing a granary.

There is a very troublesome problem here.

It is very difficult to transport grain into Guanzhong, especially the section of Shanzhou between Chang'an and Luoyang. It is impossible to sail here. There is a section of Weihe River in Guanzhong, and the section of Yellow River in the lower reaches of Shanzhou is open to navigation. There is even a canal in Henan and Hebei, which all lead directly to Yangzhou.

But the long section of Shanzhou cannot be shipped at all. When the grain ship arrives here, it can only be converted into land transportation. The car is shoulder-to-shoulder, and the grain is very heavy after all, and one stone is more than a hundred kilograms or one million stones, which is at least one or two million grain bags.

Therefore, even when the Sui Dynasty was peaceful, the southeastern grain was full, and there were several large granaries around Luoyang, full of grain, but usually they could at most lose one million stones of grain to Guanzhong a year. In addition, relying on the power of private merchants, they could lose another one or two million stones.

It's just reached its limit.

Guanzhong has to rely on Guandong to import one or two million stones of grain for every year.

But once Guanzhong encounters a disaster, one or two million stones of food will not be enough, but no matter how much it is, it is impossible to transport it in. Therefore, the emperor could only bring all officials, generals, his palace maids and eunuchs, and the people, and come to Henan to eat in a mighty manner.

In fact, Henan cannot produce so much grain, but Henan stores a lot of grain and has many granaries built on the Yellow River and canals.

The Tang Dynasty fought several battles last year. Although it was pacified the world, it was still difficult to fight. After finally destroying the anti-kings, the grain they snatched back, and calmed down prices. If you fight a few more battles, you will be totally gone.

The court could not supply grain to the people, so it could only rely on the grain merchants' grain, but the grain merchants still wanted to commit suicide.

He kept saying that there was no food.

As a result, Li Chao made a plan to remove firewood from the cauldron and acted as a hooligan. In the name of searching for the rioters, he launched a sudden attack. All the grain stored by grain merchants fell into Li Chao's hands.

More than 500,000 stones.

This is just the grain in the hands of grain merchants, and they have not yet made up the grain stockpiled by the families of those wealthy families.

However, Li Chao stopped when he saw the opportunity, more than 500,000 stones were enough to survive this period of discontinuation. In a few months, it will be the summer harvest.

Moreover, during this period, we can still transport grain from Guandong to Chang'an one after another.

"More than 500,000 stones of grain?"

In the East Palace, Li Shimin is trying on a dragon robe.

He was about to ascend the throne in three days, and Li Shimin became more and more busy. The dragon robe was very gorgeous and was made by the palace maids, but it was not very comfortable to wear on his body.

Li Shimin was also extremely surprised to hear that Li Chao got more than 500,000 stones of food in three days.

"These damn guys keep saying that they have no food, they want to sit in Chang'an and see my joke."

"What I had expected was just to investigate the grain merchants. If we checked the entire capital, it would not be surprising to find one or two million stones of grain."

In fact, ordinary people may not have overnight food at home, but those nobles have a lot of food. Because these people are basically big landlords, with more land and more food. They will not be like ordinary people. They do not have overnight food at home, and they will stock up a lot of food, especially since they have just experienced the war, who has no food at home?

Even Li Chao's own home also had thousands of stones of food.

"Your Highness, this is what I plan. When I received these grains, I took the account books and had detailed numbers, and all of them were registered. This grain was borrowed by the court. After the summer and autumn grains came down, the court would issue a list for them to go to Henan to collect the grain by themselves. We can also calculate some interest and give them a little more. This is also their support for Your Highness and my Tang Dynasty."

Li Chao's loan will hurt many grain merchants' hearts.

After all, their grain was stocked there, so the more expensive it would be to sell in the capital. However, Li Chao borrowed it and returned the grain until the harvest in summer and autumn this year, but he still had to let them go to Luoyang to receive the grain by themselves.

Even if the grain in Luoyang is increased by a little, can it be of the same value as the grain borrowed now? It will take a long time to delay the first half of the year, and the funds are backlogged, and the prices have also changed. Moreover, the price of Luoyang is very different from that of Chang'an.

Even if Li Chao adds some interest to them, these people will lose a lot.

However, Li Chao could only do this. The court had no food, so he would ask them to borrow it. Moreover, Li Chao had no money to pay. The court's Taicang treasury was actually very empty. Where did the money come from to pay for 500,000 stones of grain?

"Well, just do what you said and open a receipt for the grain merchants."

Li Shimin had no better way, so he agreed to Li Chao's way of borrowing grain to make white slips.

"Your Highness, food is precious. I plan to set up several grain sales sites in Chang'an to provide regular supply to the people and supply them according to the number of household registrations, so that everyone can buy grain."

If the grain that I finally borrowed was not managed properly and was sold in the store, it would probably be bought by those unscrupulous merchants and powerful people at a low price.

Li Chao didn't want to borrow the second time.

It's better to borrow it on behalf of grain merchants for the first time. If you have to ask the powerful and powerful to do it, it wouldn't be very wise. Li Chao doesn't want to be enemies with all the powerful and powerful.

"Your Highness, we can also take advantage of this opportunity to send grain to find out the household registration details of Chang'an and check the hidden households. We send grain, supply according to household registration. If we have household registration, we will naturally give it according to the quantity. If we don't have household registration, we cannot supply grain. It is okay to ask for grain, register as a naturalized person, and then distribute grain. The same is true for those who have slaves at home. If we have to get some grain for the slaves, we must also register the slaves in the government and then be able to receive the grain."

"Taking this opportunity, we will carefully examine the population and household registration situation in Chang'an. By the way, I plan to implement the Baojia system implemented in Taozhou, so that the five households in Chang'an are protected and ten households are A. Baojia is jointly defended, joint defense is jointly defended, and mutual supervision is conducted."

It is not that easy to control a Chang'an City with a population of hundreds of thousands.

Mastering the registered population is an extremely critical step.

Even if there are many people and black households in Chang'an City, there are many black households. The existence of a large number of black households will inevitably make the government unable to control it.

Now, with 500,000 stones of grain in Jingzhao Mansion, there are undoubtedly many bargaining chips in its hands.

During this period, we will build a grain supply according to quantity, linking grain supply with household registration, so that Jingzhao Mansion has a good entry point.

"It's very good. You can always think of these good ideas. I'm quite shocked when I see the household registration of the court. There were only three million households, 15 million people, and 2.3 million people. On average, one household and one class have not reached the level. In the Sui Dynasty, there were nearly nine million households and nearly 50 million people. In just over ten years, it was impossible to lose two-thirds of the population. This is simply impossible. Too many hidden households, a large number of people have entered the names of wealthy families and even temples and Taoist temples, and become their slaves and tenants, rather than the people of the court."

These people were digging the imperial court's walls and sucking the blood of the Tang Dynasty.

But it is not so easy to conduct a census now, and the aristocratic families will definitely resist it.

Li Chao now proposes to touch the bottom in Chang'an, which gives Li Shimin an opportunity to break the deadlock. First try the waters in Chang'an, see the situation, and try the reaction.

Let’s discuss solutions again.

"Sanlang, you were in Taozhou, a remote area on the border. In more than half a year, you have created more than 100,000 people. I was surprised and shocked. There were no hidden households in Taozhou, no escaped people, and no powerful Bo tribes who ignored the national laws. The people were registered with their household registration and land registration. In half a year, they even paid tens of thousands of taxes to the court."

There were more than 300 prefectures and more than 1,000 counties in the Tang Dynasty.

Taozhou is just an extremely ordinary border state. However, Li Chao made Taozhou the most dazzling state in the Tang Dynasty last year.
Chapter completed!