Prodigal Son of the Ming Dynasty

  Chapter 439 My mentor Fang Jifan

  During a disaster year, it was easy to borrow anything, including other people's wives and daughters, but when it came to food, even Wen Yansheng, the prefect of Ningbo, wanted to borrow food from the gentry, but it was difficult.

  Although people are willing to give more than a dozen loads, no matter how much, naturally there is none.

  Wen Yansheng has nothing to do with them.

  After all, these gentry have been entrenched in the local area for hundreds of years. They are all related to each other.

   Unfortunately, Ningbo is a place of imperial examinations. More or less, people here will produce some candidates and Jinshi.

   Some have already become scholars, and some are still officials.

  Wen Yansheng would not dare to be rough on them even if he had the guts of a bear.

  So, he began to wipe away his tears, he couldn’t live anymore, the death of the people is just around the corner, please do me a favor and give me some food.

But there will be food, but not much. When the calamity comes, the gentry need food the most. With food, small households can sell their land at a low price. The price of food has skyrocketed many times in an instant. At this time , Take out a catty of grain, my heart is bleeding.

  Although there are some good-hearted people who will always try to take out their own food and are really willing to give alms to some victims, but it is still a drop in the bucket.

Wen Yansheng returned to the yamen, took a sip of cold tea, and then began to scold loudly. These days, he has suffered too much wronged. Officials are not human beings, no matter what kind of family, there are scholars, candidates, and Jinshi in the family, or they are related to scholars, scholars, and Jinshi, and there are classmates, classmates, teachers and students everywhere. Well, what a ghost, seeing that he has some food at home, Wen Yansheng really wants to break it, but he doesn't have the guts. Those magistrates who are majestic can really break, there is a fart, they are going to starve to death, why do you want to break his house?

  Wen Yansheng is from the north. He was too young to get a job in Ningbo, and he was very happy. But when he went to the place, he found that the relationship here was really complicated.

   After cursing for a while, he drank another sip of cold tea, moistened his mouth, and then began to scold the Beiwa Guards of the Zhen Guofu. This group of people really can eat. The common people are in dire straits, thanks to their food.

  But at this time, a servant came in a hurry: "Master Wen, Master Wen."

   "What?" Wen Yansheng glanced at the guard.

   "Selling fish, there are people selling fish at the port, a lot of fish, a lot of fish."

   "What fish?"

   "It's like a yellow croaker. All in all, it's a big treasure ship. It's said to cost a penny a catty, and you can sell as much as you can."

   "What?" Wen Yansheng thought these people were crazy.

   A catty of fish for a penny?

   You know, in normal times, even a catty of rice is not worth a penny, and even the worst yellow rice costs nearly two pennies.

  This... sold for a penny?

   This is no joke.

When a drought comes, the most terrible thing is not only natural disasters, but also man-made disasters. If there is less food and more people, a large number of people will inevitably hoard food, so the price of food will skyrocket. For example, the price of food has increased by twenty times. It may not be possible to buy food.

   This is a penny and a catty of fish, just kidding.

   "Let's go." Wen Yansheng cheered up: "Go and have a look."

  The news has spread. Outside Ningbo Port, baskets of fish are unloaded directly. Almost immediately after they come down, they are weighed directly, and they are never slaughtered.

   What we want is to ship quickly, and buyers, even if they report too much, will never compare blindly. There are too many queues behind, and not only ordinary people come, but also many merchants.

  Fish that costs a penny and a catty, not to mention rare sea fish, even ordinary fish cost more than a dozen pennies. Now is the season of catastrophe, and the price has already skyrocketed.

  Everyone is crazily crowded here, the crowd is surging, and the merchants are here to buy goods, and they want as much as they have.

   They are all direct requests of tens of thousands of catties.

   This thing is resold, it is silver, Ningbo Mansion, now there is no shortage of anything, but food.

   As for their needs... Of course Tang Yin satisfied all of them.

  In fact, he no longer cares about how to sell it, because no matter how he sells it, it can be sold out in half a day at this price.

  The fish cannot be distributed to the victims in vain.

  The problem brought about by the severe drought is the reduction of food, more people and less food, so the food skyrocketed. Therefore, as long as the people can have cheap food, there is no need to worry about food prices not falling.

   Besides, the sailors have worked hard to go fishing, do you want to give them some rewards?

  Furthermore, the majestic Zhen Guogong still needs to be resupplied, and it will continue to set sail tomorrow morning. Tang Yin needs bigger and stronger fishing nets, the stronger the better. Many small boats are also needed, and a lot of fishing tools are needed.

  All of these need to be ordered in time, only the best and the most expensive.

  500,000 catties of fish were sold very quickly. In the evening, those victims who were naked and starved of food began to stew fish with tears in their eyes.

  Fish is different from rice.

  It is very perishable.

  So someone wants to stock up on fish, first he has to have a freezer, and then he doesn't have one.

  So even if the merchants bought the goods, they would quickly transport them to various places and sell them directly. They came in for one penny and sold for two pennies, which was profitable enough.

  In the whole city of Ningbo, cooking smoke rose everywhere, and the smell of countless fish wafted through the city.

   It won’t be long before news spreads that merchants from other counties will come to this port to wait, and even... many disaster victims will flock to Fucheng.

  The news has been released in the water village. In the future, there will be fish for this penny, and...

  Large yellow croaker is rich in nutrition. This catty of fish, boiled in soup, is not only extremely tender, can barely fill the stomach, but also can guarantee enough impact.

  The whole family gathers together, the stove is filled with the smell of fish, the children swallow their saliva, and the adults carefully throw some salt into the boiling pot.

  When the fish soup was ready, the family gathered around the fish and began to distribute it. The children didn't care about getting it hot, so they took the fish pieces and put them in their mouths.

   "It smells so good!"

   "Child..." The man couldn't hide the joy on his face: "From now on, our family will have to eat fish poorly."

  Yes, a penny fish is the cheapest food, let alone a bad year, even in a good year.

   This big yellow croaker, if the poor don't eat it, who will eat it?

  The fish soup is very fragrant, especially for hungry sallow people, it almost becomes a huge treat.

  The fish was very tender. After eating, the child's mother cried: "Such poverty is worth a lifetime."

  ...

  In the water village.

Wen Yansheng was holding a few carefully selected large yellow croakers in his hands. This was a gift from his visit to the water village. Editor Tang still gave him face. These three fish were specially reserved and they were very heavy. The appearance is also good, the big yellow croaker is very handsome.

Wen Yansheng handed over the fishing rope in his hand to the guard at the side, and said with a smile: "What a feat. If it takes three days, there will be hundreds of thousands of catties. No, no, no, even if it is a supply of one hundred thousand catties of fish. Even if it is several million catties, the lives of countless people in the whole family in Ningbo can be regarded as being saved."

As he said that, Wen Yansheng's eyes turned red. It's not that he was really guilty of not doing enough to relieve the disaster, but as a local parent official, he could only watch the people under his rule starve to death. All the problems have been solved, the people can't eat food, why don't they eat fish?

   This is a great achievement, a great achievement.

He looked at the young editor with a bit of envy: "Editor Tang, if you need to do something in Ningbo Mansion when you are fishing, just tell me, I will help you, and I will help you if you can. Get rid of your worries."

  500,000 catties of fish is 500,000 yuan. What does this mean? This is nearly a thousand taels of silver. It is a relatively huge wealth. It goes back and forth once in three days. After one month, ten thousand taels of silver is not a problem: "There are too few ships now, so we need the prefect of Wen to recruit more skilled craftsmen. The method is to build a few more ships, and besides that, some manpower is also needed, but manpower... I don’t think you need to worry about it. When the time comes, the ships will come, and I will go to Yiwu and Yongkang to recruit.”

  Wen Yansheng couldn't help saying: "Why, look down on Ningbo people?"

  Now Wen Yansheng wished that more young men would follow the water village to beg for food, but there was no way, there were not many things now, but there were many people.

   Tang Yin shook his head: "I don't mean to look down on it, it's just that people from Yiwu and Yongkang... are poorer..."

   "..."

  Poverty may be temporary, but Ningbo Mansion has always been considered affluent, and if it suffers a disaster, it is also temporary, and one cannot change one's mind.

But Yiwu people are different from Yongkang people. Over there, people have been poor since the eighteenth generation of their ancestors. If they are not brave and ruthless, they have no chance to reproduce and survive. Under such survival of the fittest, the courage The biggest, strongest, and with fewer genetic diseases, naturally survived.

Wen Yansheng remained silent for a long time, then he sighed and said, "However, Editor Tang, you have to be careful. To be honest, once you sell fish, there are many hoarders who hate you in their hearts. Originally, this catastrophe, for some people, was a death without a place to die, but for some people, it was a good time to make a fortune. Those who have a lot of food in their hands are not simple people Ah, when the time comes..."

   Tang Yin smiled contemptuously.

   To be honest, he is not afraid of anything, but this is the only thing he is not afraid of.

Tang Yin said word by word: "It seems that Governor Wen has forgotten that my name is Tang Yin, and my benefactor's surname is Fang, and his two names are Jifan. Maybe his reputation is not big enough in Ningbo Mansion. But...don't worry about these details. People are ignorant and ignorant, but those people who prefect Wen said are very capable, if they want to make trouble, they have to write books for their relatives and friends in Beijing, and by then, they will be sensible."

  (end of this chapter)