Yu Jiao replied immediately, "No problem." She didn't expect Gu Yun to agree so readily. She thought it would take a lot of persuasion to get Gu Yun to help.
"I will arrange for someone to go buy grain on the Suhu River." Gu Yun said, "Zi Qi and I will return to Beijing in a few days. I will have my people contact you after they buy the grain."
"Okay." Yu Jiao got all the benefits from this deal. At first, she wanted to go to Jiangnan and other places to buy grain by herself, but as a woman without any foundation, others might not be willing to sell grain to her. She considered bringing Gu Yun into the group only because of his status and wanted to use his banner to do things outside.
Now Gu Yun not only paid the money, but also undertook to go to the Suhu River to buy grain, which saved her most of the work. It seemed that she, the person who took the initiative to do the business, had contributed the least.
But on second thought, once the grain arrives, Gu Yun will be in the capital, and she will need to devote all her energy to selling the grain, so Yu Jiao didn't feel too bad about it.
She went back to the east room, packed up two thousand taels of silver notes, and sent them to Gu Yun's room.
Liu Ziqi entered Gu Yun's room not long after Yu Jiao left.
He was silent for a while before asking, "Why did Miss Yu come to see you?"
Gu Yun did not hide anything from Liu Ziqi and told him about Yu Jiao's request for cooperation in purchasing grain.
Liu Ziqi sighed softly, "It's rare that she was born in the countryside and has never been far away, yet she is so smart and alert. If the rain doesn't stop, it's only a matter of time before the Sishui River bursts its banks."
Since that day, the two never talked about Yu Jiao again. Gu Yun was afraid that Liu Ziqi would resent and hate Yu Jiao because she was not Su Jian. Now she realized that she was overthinking.
"Maybe the rain will stop tomorrow. It's much lighter today." Gu Yun said.
Instead of hoping for the weather to clear up, which is beyond human control, it is better to prepare for a rainy day.
Liu Ziqi said, "Miss Yu's method is indeed desirable. If the North is hit by a disaster, we might as well use the power of the court to recruit merchants to sell grain and set the grain price within a controllable range. This can alleviate the suffering of the victims in the North to a certain extent, but there are still some details that need to be considered."
Gu Yun was not optimistic about this method. He said, "If there is a real disaster, how can the victims have money to buy food? This method is only applicable to those places where the disaster is not serious."
If the farmland is damaged but the houses and lives are not lost, this method can allow the people in the north to survive one harvest. However, if the disaster is serious, there will be famine everywhere and starving people on the roads. The only thing they can do is rely on the court to provide disaster relief and grain.
Although each province had an official granary, Taiyan had long been rotten from the root. The emperor had no heart for the people, the court was in a mess, and the whole place was rotten from top to bottom.
The official granaries of each prefecture should have a grain reserve of around 500,000 dan per year, but the reason why Gu Yun and Liu Ziqi were so worried was because they knew that these official granaries would definitely not be able to produce 500,000 dan of grain.
"Whether the rain stops tomorrow or not, we have to set off." Liu Ziqi suddenly made a decision, "We will go to Chanzhou first. If the Sishui River bursts its banks, it will definitely break through Guling first."
Gu Yun knew that he wanted to go to Chanzhou to supervise the dredging of Guling. After all, the bursting of the Sishui River affected the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. He nodded and said, "Okay."
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The villagers who were releasing water into the fields realized belatedly that the water level of the Qingshui River was almost overflowing the riverbed, and they felt a little uneasy. Although the Qingshui River is a small river, it flows through the Zhiyuan Canal in Qingzhou and eventually merges into the largest Sishui River in Taiyan. In recent years, the river has rarely been overflowing.
Coupled with the heavy rains in recent days, the elderly people in the village could no longer sit still and knocked on the Chen family’s door.
Because Chen Gensheng's old lady passed away, he has not buried her yet and has not dared to release water in the fields.
He was startled when he heard someone knocking on the door, and asked Chen Qinshi to open the gate.
When Chen Qin saw that it was the elder of the Chen family who knocked on the door, she panicked, fearing that the elder was here to visit Old Madam Chen.
"Fourth uncle, is there anything wrong?" Chen Qinshi did not dare to welcome the man in and asked pretending to be fine.
"Is Gensheng at home? The Qingshui River is about to flood. I see that there is too much rain this year and the situation is not good. We have to think of a solution." The fourth uncle of the Chen family said in a trembling voice.
Upon hearing this, Chen Qin breathed a sigh of relief and helped the person in.
Chen Gensheng sat in a chair and listened anxiously to his fourth uncle's purpose. When he heard that he was wanted to preside over the worship of the river god, he agreed immediately.
"My fourth uncle is really thoughtful. I will inform every household in the village and ask them to prepare gifts for worshiping the river god." Chen Gensheng said.
"The sooner the better." The elderly fourth uncle of the Chen family warned worriedly.
There had not been a natural disaster in the north for many years, and the last time the river god was worshipped was decades ago. Chen Gensheng asked in detail what needed to be prepared, sent his fourth uncle and his family out, and then put on a straw raincoat and went to the village to notify every household. He also went to several nearby villages to find the headmen of other villages to prepare for the ceremony together.
The villagers were also afraid of floods. If the fields were flooded again, there would be no harvest next year. They were very supportive of worshiping the river god and had no complaints about giving food and money.
By evening, the sacrifices of pigs, sheep and other living things were ready, and people from several villages gathered at the Qingshui River. Yu Jiao was also pulled there by Yu Fuling. She naturally did not believe that worshiping the river god could quell the natural disaster, she just wanted to watch the fun.
Pigs and sheep were driven into the river as sacrifices to the river god, and all the villagers knelt on the ground and prayed devoutly in the rain.
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