Chapter 948: 8 Conquests and 8 Battles

Two days later, Qin Qihu's wife, Li, also gave birth to a baby boy.

The Qin family had two more boys who had children. Qin Liugan was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling. He rarely scolded Qin Qihu, but praised Qin Qihu and his wives and concubines for their hard work.

Seeing the old rogue's happy expression, Yun Zheng couldn't help but secretly complain.

Fortunately, this was in ancient times, and the Qin family was wealthy and powerful, so there was no need to worry about these young people not being able to find wives.

Otherwise, Qin Liu was sure that he would not be able to laugh.

Emperor Wen rushed to the Qin family and gave names to Qin Qihu's two sons on the spot.

Qin's eight expeditions and eight battles.

Yun Zheng didn't know why the Qin family was so obsessed with numerical generations.

Qin Zheng, Qin Zhan, what nice names.

I have to add an "eight".

It might be better to call it Eight Hearts and Eight Arrows, which is easier to pronounce.

Yun Zheng complained silently in his heart.

After naming the two children, Emperor Wen told Yun Zheng: "I will be staying here with Qihu for the next few days!"

"Yes!"

Yun Zheng smiled and said, "I'll have someone send some things over later."

He knew that Emperor Wen could not possibly live in the palace forever.

The former prince’s son is still in the Qin family!

Emperor Wen came all the way here, so he must spend a few days with his grandson.

"Ah."

Emperor Wen nodded and smiled without saying much.

They stayed at Qin Qihu's house until evening, had dinner here, and then rushed back to the palace.

The next morning, Yun Zheng was sleeping soundly with Shen Luoyan in his arms, when there was a hurried knock on the door.

"Yun Zheng, an urgent message came from the Northwest Protectorate!"

Yun Zheng was still in a daze when Ye Zi's voice rang out.

Northwest Protectorate?

Yun Zheng suddenly sat up with a start, quickly climbed out of bed, put on his clothes hastily and went to open the door.

Shen Luoyan was also woken up and quickly took the clothes beside the bed and put them on.

When the door opened, Ye Zi immediately handed the urgent letter in her hand to Yun Zheng, then walked behind Yun Zheng and helped him tidy up his messy clothes.

Yunzheng quickly opened the letter.

Looking at the contents of the letter, Yun Zheng couldn't help but smile helplessly.

As expected, people still starved to death on a large scale in the Northwest Protectorate.

People from several villages starved to death while fleeing the famine.

In addition, because it was also the autumn harvest time in the Northwest Protectorate, many hungry people secretly collected grain from other people's homes, which caused many armed fights.

Now, the entire Northwest Protectorate, especially the former Dayue Kingdom, has become a mess.

The only thing to be thankful for is that because they have a large number of troops stationed there, and with the deterrence of Yun Zheng's previous thundering measures, no one has organized the starving people to rebel.

But many hungry people spontaneously organized themselves into bandits, relying on their advantage in numbers to rob others of their food.

Although Feng Yu and his men continued to clear out the bandits, just as they finished clearing out the bandits on this side, new bandits appeared on the other side.

And those people they sent to plunder the tribes in western Mo have not yet brought back supplies.

Dugu Ce was worried that if this continued, the population of the Northwest Protectorate would drop sharply.

Dugu Ce asked whether he could recruit more disaster victims to build roads and dig canals as a form of work-in-lieu of relief.

However, the amount of food consumed by work-for-relief is definitely much more than directly providing relief to the hungry.

After all, providing relief directly to the hungry people does not require them to do anything, as long as they are not starved to death.

But if we use work as relief, we must ensure that the hungry people at least have the strength to work.

Although both are aimed at helping the hungry people survive, the different methods of relief will result in a huge difference in the amount of food consumed in the end.

Yun Zheng handed the letter to Ye Zi, then took a sip of the overnight tea.

To be honest, Yun Zheng was not surprised by the situation there.

Such a huge food gap is not easy to fill.

The solutions they thought of could only alleviate the food shortage problem there, but could not fundamentally solve it in the short term.

Ye Zi and Shen Luoyan read the contents of the letter together and frowned instantly, "What are you going to do?"

"Providing relief to the hungry is a given."

Yun Zheng rubbed his head and said, "However, we still have to consider how to provide relief to the hungry people."

He certainly doesn't want the population there to drop sharply.

Those are all labor force. As long as we can make it until next autumn harvest, they are all labor force!

"But we don't have much food now!"

Shen Luoyan worriedly said, "Although we have some surplus food this year, the army has also grown a lot, and we have to feed so many captives. If the northern barbarians invade in large numbers, we will have to consume a lot more food..."

The potato harvest was good this year, and Shuobei could barely achieve self-sufficiency and ensure the normal consumption of the army.

But if they also have to feed the hungry people in the Northwest Protectorate, their food will definitely not be enough.

"The third brother still owes us three million dan of grain, which can be used for emergency purposes! In addition, all the tax grain in Fuzhou will be replaced by sweet potatoes, which can also save some grain!"

Yun Zheng thought about it silently, and told Ye Zi: "Ask Chen Bu to transfer two million dan of coarse grains, bran and the like to Tianqiong Pass. I will go and write back to Dugu Ce!"

"Two million dan?" Ye Zi's face changed slightly, "Isn't that too much?"

"That's all for once!" Yun Zheng said helplessly, "Unless I get a lot of food later, it will be impossible to allocate more food to help the hungry people!"

This is basically a one-time transaction.

How many people can survive with these two million dan of grain depends entirely on their luck.

It was impossible for him to transfer all the surplus grain to relieve the hungry people, so he had to leave some reserve grain for the army. Otherwise, if a war broke out and the army ran out of food, it would be a disaster.

"If it's just this once, then it's fine."

Ye Zi was relieved. "Anyway, we have tried our best. If we can't save so many people, there is nothing we can do! No matter what, we must ensure the supply of the army first."

Yun Zheng’s greatest reliance is the army in his hands.

The military will never allow problems to occur.

Otherwise, they would most likely end up being torn to pieces.

"Ah."

Yun Zheng nodded gently, "Let's do this for now! We'll talk about the rest later! Also, inform Chen Bu to continue purchasing the supplies from the interior of the country, don't be afraid to spend money."

The autumn harvest has already begun in the interior of the country, and they can still buy some grain from there.

The entire Shuobei and Northwest Protectorate should still strive to have a grain reserve of 3 million dan.

"it is good!"

Ye Zi nodded and quickly walked out of the room.

Shen Luoyan also helped Yun Zheng get the pen, ink, paper and inkstone.

Yun Zheng thought for a moment and began to write back to Dugu Ce.

The two million dan of grain must be divided into two parts.

Part of it was used to directly relieve the hungry, and part of it was used as food for the working people.

As for how to balance the two, Yun Zheng directly delegated power to Dugu Ce and let him decide for himself.

After confirming the contents of the letter, Yun Zheng handed it to Shen Luoyan and said, "Send someone to deliver this letter to Dugu Ce as quickly as possible!"

Shen Luoyan took the letter and quickly walked out the door.

Yun Zheng sat there, his mind working rapidly.

Well, now that we have opened trade channels with the tribes in western Mo, we still have to use them!

White sugar and refined salt can be sold to the various tribes in the west of the desert.

Try to buy some supplies they urgently need.

The wine is also sold to the tribes west of the desert!

However, wine can only be exchanged for grain, not directly traded with silver!

Only in this way can we ensure that the sale of alcohol can continue.