After the five of them took turns giving their speeches, many people in the audience were already moved.
Of course, just being moved isn't enough, because anyone can say anything; it's how you act that matters.
So, the five wealthy gentry began their operation.
First up was the portly tycoon, who went up to the crowd and said:
“When the country is in trouble and the people are in trouble, how can we, who have food and money, sit idly by? So I am prepared to donate 1,000 shi of grain and 1,000 taels of silver.”
At this time of year, one tael of silver can buy two dan (a unit of weight) of rice, and a single dan of rice weighs 110-120 jin (a unit of weight).
In other words, the silver and grain donated by this wealthy, portly man totaled 300,000 jin of grain.
If one jin of grain is enough to feed one person for two days, then 300,000 jin of grain would be enough to feed 100,000 people for about six days.
This fat tycoon alone could provide for all the disaster victims in Hukou County for six days.
If you eat sparingly, you can even last for seven or eight days, or even ten days.
This shows just how wealthy this guy is.
Zhu Yunwen was quite excited, and then Lord Zhang stepped forward. The grain and money he donated were enough to feed 100,000 disaster victims for seven or eight days.
The remaining three gentry and wealthy people donated a similar amount of grain. These five people alone donated enough grain and money to last 100,000 people a month if they lived frugally.
This alone is enough to greatly delay the disaster.
Zhu Yunwen took a deep breath. This was still beyond his imagination. He originally thought that the money and grain donated by the wealthy people in Hukou County could only alleviate the hunger of the disaster victims to a small extent.
Specifically, relief efforts will have to be provided by other surrounding counties, and the imperial court may even have to allocate grain.
But he never expected that these five wealthy gentry members alone would be able to feed 100,000 disaster victims for a whole month.
There are also several hundred ordinary wealthy people below. Their numbers are large, and they can probably gather even more food, which would allow the disaster to be handled perfectly.
Although this was a good thing, it also made Zhu Yunwen realize a problem: these gentry and wealthy people were really too rich and had too much food; their resources were truly terrifying.
In Zhu Yunwen's mind, there seemed to be an ancient saying: "Sharing the world with the scholar-officials."
This situation seems to have been quite typical in the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty was a period in which scholar-officials almost shared power with the imperial authority, and these scholar-officials referred to the local gentry and wealthy people.
They represented the people within the imperial power, and in turn, power and status among the people.
The decline and demise of the late Ming Dynasty were, to some extent, inextricably linked to these gentry and wealthy individuals.
Perhaps it was precisely because they were too rich and had too much food, and because ordinary people were exploited so badly, that led to the decline of the Ming Dynasty at the end of the Ming Dynasty.
Now, Zhu Yunwen seems to think that this is indeed the case.
After all, it was only the early Ming Dynasty, and these gentry and wealthy people were already so rich. It was truly frightening.
After these five wealthy gentrymen made such a generous donation, seemingly emptying their coffers, the hundreds of rich people sitting below felt extremely uneasy.
Because these five people of high status have set an example and played a strong leading role.
So now it's their turn. Can they still deal with this with a perfunctory attitude?
If that's really the case, will they still be able to hold their heads high in Hukou County?
Most importantly, they were not making donations privately, but were to be publicly executed. They were to be called up one by one by five gentry and wealthy people and stand alone on that high platform to make donations in front of tens of thousands of people.
This has a somewhat coercive connotation.
But what could they do?
If, under such circumstances, the gentry and wealthy have already suffered heavy losses, they will still keep it to themselves.
Not only will they be ridiculed and looked down upon, but they will also be targeted by these gentry and wealthy people.
It will be very difficult to live in Hukou County in the future.
Therefore, the wealthy people who were called to the stage one by one had no choice but to reluctantly make relatively large donations.
As a result, some of them donated dozens of bushels of rice or dozens of cartloads of silver, some donated a dozen taels of silver, and some donated a dozen bushels of rice.
After several rounds of donations, hundreds of people donated money and grain, which together amounted to more than three million catties of grain.
More than three million catties of grain.
That's enough to feed 100,000 people in the Ming Dynasty for more than a year.
Zhu Yunwen slumped back in his chair, muttering to himself:
"It's enough to feed them for a year and there's still more... By the time they finish eating it and the crops are replanted next spring, we might not even be able to finish all the donated grain."
This move greatly alleviated the disaster situation, and even completely resolved it...
After the initial shock, he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Having been sent by Zhu Yuanzhang to deal with the disaster, he had finally fulfilled his mission.
The donation was over, and everyone's name was registered by the officials, and the amount each person donated was also recorded.
Over the next half day, the officials split into several groups and went door-to-door to collect grain according to the names on the donation list.
To avoid appearing to be all talk, the five wealthy gentry took the initiative to send people to transport large quantities of grain, cartload by cart, to the entrance of the county government office.
They also carried over boxes and boxes of the money they donated.
In their view, this was simply putting on a show.
Zhu Yunwen cooperated fully, ordering all the grain to be put into the government granary and all the silver to be collected and stored away, in preparation for purchasing grain from more distant places.
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