Chapter 652: Distribution of Grain

Editor: Atlas Studios

The commoners who rushed over did not manage to buy the cured pork and pickled vegetables that the Emperor had eaten. Instead, they returned home with a legend about the royalty. Hence, after the commoners specially spread the news, the news of the Emperor eating chaff and vegetables to help out the commoners spread throughout Jiangnan, and then to the north, central, western, and southern regions.

Unknowingly, Qi Xiuyuan had gained the loyalty of a large number of subjects. It had only been half a year since the founding of the country, but the people had slowly developed a sense of belonging to Great Qi. By the time the Emperor found out, the news had already reached Qiannan. The people of Qiannan specially gathered to pay a visit to the capital to thank the Emperor for his love for them.

Liu Qing specially reported this matter to the Emperor. When Qi Xiuyuan received the memorial, he sighed slightly and spent the New Year in a good mood. But of course, this was all to happen a month later.

At this moment, Zhu Liang was happily supervising the accountant to store all the money earned in the treasury. Just as he was locking up, an emissary came to summon him to the palace.

Not daring to delay, Zhu Liang hurriedly entered the palace.

As Zhu Liang was a servant, Qi Xiuyuan met him in the harem and asked, “Have you sold all the goods you brought?”

“Yes, Your Majesty. They were all sold by noon today.”

Qi Xiuyuan nodded slightly. “How much did you earn?”

Zhu Liang quickly handed over the account book that he had updated today. Qi Xiuyuan flipped to the last page and raised his eyebrows. “Why is there so much?”

“Your Majesty’s grace is vast and mighty. This is all thanks to Your Majesty…”

Qi Xiuyuan shook his head with a smile. “Are you going to buy grains immediately?”

“Yes, Her Highness specially instructed us to set off as soon as possible. It’s best if we can return to Qiannan at the start of spring. The villagers are all waiting.”

Qi Xiuyuan nodded slightly. “Then go down and prepare. When you’re about to set off, send someone to the palace to inform me. I have something for the Prince and the Princess Consort.”

“Yes.” Zhu Liang bowed and left.

As the grains were purchased directly from the Harvest Grain Store’s headquarters, the purchase concluded very quickly. After he calculated the money, the other party immediately took out grains to load the carts. In less than two days, 23 carts worth of grains were packed.

Wang Quan said in distress, “I didn’t expect your carts of goods to be able to exchange for so much money. You almost emptied the grain warehouse.”

Zhu Liang said with a smile, “It won’t be long before another batch can be transported from the north. Do you need to fret about the supply of goods for your grain store? When autumn harvest arrives, there will be the harvest from His Highness’s fief, so there’s even less to worry about.”

Wang Quan smiled at the thought.

Qi Xiuyuan asked Li Jinghua to prepare a lot of good stuff, five carts worth of food and necessities. Two of the carts were for Fan Zijin. When the officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs saw that Qi Xiuyuan had moved nearly half of the tributes from various regions this year, they felt that he favored Prince Rong and the Duke of Peaceful State too much. However, they didn’t dare to say a word.

Zhu Liang had only been in the capital for six days before he set off south again. It would be New Year’s Day in three days, so he could only spend the New Year on the road.

As they were transporting a lot of grain, the return journey took a much longer time—a full 21 days to reach Ju Prefecture. The carriage had just entered the city when it was surrounded by the commoners, causing an uproar.

Zhu Liang jumped in fright. Thinking that it was refugees snatching grains, he hurriedly got someone to protect the convoy. However, he saw the commoners kneeling down. Xiao Ting came over quickly and said, “Steward Zhu, the commoners are grateful for His Majesty’s kindness. Her Highness asked you to transport the grains directly to the government office and personally hand them over to Magistrate Liu.”

Liu Qing had already prepared two grain warehouses. Together with Governor Xu, they checked the grains before ordering for the grains to be stored in the warehouses.

After the handover, Zhu Liang brought the account book back to see Mu Yangling. Mu Yangling flipped through it and said to Xiao Ting, “Rush to the stockade at full speed and inform Chief Ji’an to come over tomorrow to get the grains. Send letters to the elders and the county office who were previously in charge and get them to come over as well. Get the servants who have been trained previously to prepare. When these people come tomorrow, we’ll start paying the bill.”

Chief Ji’an arrived very quickly, arriving outside the residence not long after the city gate opened. Mu Yangling understood how he felt and got up to work.

Not long after dawn, the highly respected leaders in charge of the acquisition came one after another. Other than the people near Ju Prefecture City, there were also people from the two nearby prefectures. As their homes were very far from Ju Prefecture, some of them took three to four days to walk here.

As Zhu Liang would write letters every three days to report his journey, Mu Yangling had already gotten someone to invite everyone over five days ago. By now, they were already staying at the relay station. Unexpectedly, those who lived in the city actually arrived later than Chief Ji’an though the latter had to travel. Everyone looked a little embarrassed.

Chief Ji’an, on the other hand, was all smiles. Just now, he had already asked the Prince’s estate’s servant girls about the situation. All their goods had been sold, and there were also 20 carts of grains transported back. Of course he was happy.

Mu Yangling came out of the back hall and went straight to the point. “Thank you for taking the trouble to make this trip. The grains have already been transported back. Since we’ve promised the villagers, we’ll definitely fulfill our promise. I called everyone here today to split the grains.”

When Mu Yangling turned to look at Spring, the latter went out to bring three teams of servants over and stood in the courtyard. Seeing this, the people in the house whispered to each other.

Mu Yangling looked at them and said, “These are all servants of the Prince’s estate who know how to do accounting. The matter of returning the grains is very important. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but it involves the livelihood of the people, so I have to be careful. Just like before, every team is composed of someone from the Prince’s estate, a bailiff, and a respected elder. The respected elders will be in charge of handing the grains back to the villagers with a promissory note.”

Mu Yangling stood up and bowed to the respected elders in the hall. “These respected elders were chosen by the people of the various villages. I’ll hand this over to you now. The Prince’s estate will definitely reward you handsomely after this.”

Everyone stood up and returned the greeting. “Your Highness, this is what we should do. We should be thanking His Majesty for his benevolence and Your Highness for your kindness.”

“That’s right, that’s right. I didn’t expect His Majesty to still remember us country bumpkins.”

Mu Yangling said with a smile, “The entire world is ruled by His Majesty. No matter how remote and desolate a place is, the citizens there are still the Emperor’s people. How can the Emperor not be concerned about you?”

After Mu Yangling finished speaking, she got someone to take the account book and lead everyone to the grain warehouse to collect the corresponding grains. When the time came, the bailiffs of the various county offices would be in charge of escorting the grains.

After they left, Mu Yangling finally had time to entertain Chief Ji’an. As the Miao stockade could get the most grain, he did not have to queue up with everyone. Instead, he directly got their share from Mu Yangling.

The Miao people had all chosen to accept the promissory notes to exchange for grains, and no one had chosen to accept cash, so they received the most grains. After some calculations, they actually took away 11 carts of grains at once.

Chief Ji’an checked and saw that the quality of the coarse grains in the car was passable. He immediately smiled so widely that his eyes were narrowed into slits. Chen Jiacai didn’t expect things to go so smoothly, and was surprised that those common items that every family in the Miao stockade owned could really be exchanged for so much grain.

Chief Ji’an asked his son-in-law to escort the grains back first and distribute them to the Miao people while he stayed behind. He smiled as he looked at the carts over on the Han side and realized that they weren’t transporting away much grain. All in all, there were less than five carts. He fell into deep thought and turned to look for Mu Yangling. “Your Highness, why did you Han people take away so little?”

Mu Yangling said with a smile, “Back then, when we collected the goods, many Han people chose to accept copper coins. Not many chose promissory notes.”

Chief Ji’an’s eyes lit up. “Then the remaining grain…”

Chapter end