Great Zhou Empress

From winter to spring, Xue Zhijing grew another year, because he had enough food, he also grew a little taller.

She no longer trains polo under the sun for a long time. As she said, her skin quickly turned white again, looking thin and translucent, with a healthy luster, and her already beautiful facial features are even more beautiful. Her eyebrows are as bright as stars.

Because of the good effect of physical exercise, her figure is slender and flexible, and her arms are stronger than ordinary girls.Because he is still young and his development is not obvious, when he wears men's clothing, he still has a fresh and youthful feeling that is indistinguishable between male and female.

Empress Yuan Hanzhang would tease her occasionally, saying that if she was born a man and rode a horse through the long streets of Bianjing, she would definitely receive a large number of gifts.

Xue Zhijing only thought Yuan Hanzhang was praising her for her good looks.

Who doesn't like to hear others praise how good they are.

This year, the Dacheng Dynasty had a lot of natural disasters. In the spring, the area north of the Yellow River was drought-stricken. In summer, the dams in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River were washed away during the flood season. Over the past, did not form a large area of ​​hungry people.

Xue Zhijing also participated in many specific tasks, but because she was far away, she could not experience the situation of the people affected by the disaster. All she could know was the numbers recorded in the documents, how many counties were affected by the disaster, how many people, How much food is needed, how much money is needed, and so on.

When autumn came, Yuan Hanzhang arranged another mission for Xue Zhijing, asking her to go on a business trip.

After understanding it, it is probably to go to the border to check the taxation issues of the customs.

The so-called "customs" is the place where a certain percentage of taxes is charged for transactions with foreign countries.The Dacheng Dynasty was an open commercial society based on agriculture, but domestic and international commerce was developed.

The "customs" of the Dacheng Dynasty were roughly divided into two, one was the "Que Field" facing the Liao Kingdom in the north, and the other was the "Shibosi" facing overseas countries in the south.

Judging from the financial information seen by Xue Zhijing, the income from "Qianchang" and "Shibosi" can be said to be the pillar of the Dacheng Dynasty's finances. This part of the income plus domestic commercial taxes, from the ratio of fiscal revenue Agricultural taxes have been overwhelmed.If it was completely dependent on the income from agriculture, the court of the Dacheng Dynasty should have been unable to support it long ago, because Dacheng has been established for 400 years, and the land that the country can collect taxes is only half of what it was in the early years of the dynasty, and the other half was embezzled by wealthy families. .

"The income from the market is a loss for us every year. The Liao Kingdom's income accounts for the majority. Go and see what's going on. Is there any secret transaction between the border officials and the other party. The Shibo Department, the nearest The income is also decreasing, please check it for me."

The "landlord's wife" Yuan Hanzhang, who had no surplus food in the landlord's house, had hidden expectations in her eyes, and it seemed that she hoped that Xue Zhijing would increase her financial income by a few percent.

Xue Zhijing really wanted to say that she had never been the Minister of Finance in her previous life. This kind of thing may have nothing to do with the economy. It is more likely that it involves a problem with the corresponding person in charge.

She always told Yuan Hanzhang before that she wanted to go to the cabinet workshop belonging to the Yuan family to exercise. The cabinet workshop can barely be regarded as the prototype of a bank. This is an industry Xue Zhijing is familiar with. The cabinet workshop is doing reform and innovation, building a bank in a new era, and being the first banker in this time and space, maybe it can still be included in the history books, and it is not in vain for me to travel this time.

But the Empress would not allow it.

Forget it, let's go, where is not work.

But this mission is not light, Xue Zhijing hurriedly said, "I want to take Yuan Jin, Li Jing, and Chen Tang with me."

"Okay, just let Yuan Jin take a good look at the recent movements of the Liao Kingdom, and also see if the soldiers on the border have enough food and grass."

"Yes, ma'am."

Although Xue Zhijing was not such a delicate person, Xiao Hong, Xiao Lu and Xiao Cui packed up a large cart of things when he went out, and even put the toilet in the carriage.

Xue Zhijing looked at the convoy with a bit of a head, whether he was going on a trip or a business trip.

But she also knows that life in this era is inconvenient. There are no five-star hotels along the way that can provide everything, and there are no 24-hour supplies of sanitary napkins.

Convenience store where you can buy.Along the way, you should live in an official post station. The conditions of the post station should be worse as you go to the border, so you have to bring a lot of things.

However, considering the importance of this mission, Xue Zhijing still let Xiaohong and Xiaolu stay, and only planned to take Xiaocui out. At the same time, he also simplified a lot of things, such as not bringing a complete set of white porcelain tea sets. Everyone can soak it in a big bowl when they are away from home. Why are you so particular about it?And don’t bring the exquisitely carved copper incense burner, what are you doing with the incense in the wilderness, to repel mosquitoes?

I really feel that the longer I live here, the more things I have outside of me, hey~

Finally, it was finally easy to follow, a dozen people, a few carriages and a few horses set off.

Take a boat first when you go out. In this era, the river is the highway, so there is the saying "Among the colorful clouds of Baidi Baidi, and the return of a thousand miles of Jiangling in one day". Although exaggerated, it is enough to show the speed of using rivers for transportation. .

From the perspective of terrain, Bianjing City is extremely unsuitable to be a capital city, because the surrounding river network is densely covered, and the water is easy to rise during the flood season. At the same time, the iron hooves of neighboring countries can theoretically run to the city within a few days if there is no obstruction. A city that lacks a sense of security.

But in Bianjing City, it is extremely suitable to be a capital city, because the water network is densely covered here, and it is located in the middle of the entire country.The dense water network means convenient transportation. The grain grown in the Jiangnan area can be shipped directly to the capital, which is extremely economical and fast, not to mention that water resources will never be lacking.Bianjing City is surrounded by plains, which are unique conditions for agriculture.

There are more than 100 million people living in Bianjing City, which is a super metropolis in this era. The amount of food, vegetables, drinking water, and waste excreted by 100 million people every day is unimaginable, and all of them can be realized here, which is the advantage of Bianjing City.

Along the Bian River to the Yellow River, the scenery along the way is picturesque.

Because it is around the capital city, people's lives are rich and stable. From the boat, you can see the autumn scenery at a glance. The rice on both sides of the river is almost harvest time, and the large fields are shaking with the wind, which is too beautiful to be seen.

Weeping willows are planted all over the river bank, and the long branches hang down into the water, and the reflection is clearly visible.

Xue Zhijing was sitting on the bow of the boat, and really wanted to have a camera to record the picturesque scenery one by one and cherish them forever.

But when the boat enters the Yellow River, the scenery changes immediately.

The Yellow River has nurtured the eastern land for thousands of years. In the early years, the agricultural technology was very poor, and the residents living in the mountainous area could only use slash-and-burn farming to survive. Therefore, the water and soil in the upstream mountainous area gradually lost. Slowly, the soil around the river channel was washed into the river. Among them, as the river flows, it slowly deposits to the bottom of the channel, causing the river bed to slowly rise.

The river bed is raised, so only embankments can be built to prevent the river from overflowing and flooding the farmland. As time goes by, the embankments are getting higher and higher, and the river bed is getting higher and higher. Up to now, the Yellow River has become a suspended river on the ground.

Although willows and elms are now planted all over the dikes and dams, it is hard to get back, and it still cannot completely change the status quo.

The water of the Yellow River is so yellow that the naked eye can see it, which shows the weight of the sediment.

The boat didn't go far, so I disembarked and took a chariot and horse.

Xue Zhijing's plan was to go to the northern border first, and then divert to the southern coastal border.

The further north you go, the more desolate the surrounding environment becomes.

Xue Zhijing and Yuan Jin rode in front of the convoy on horseback. The road they walked was a road built between states. It was about as wide as four horses could walk side by side. There were also street trees planted around, but the street trees in this area seemed to be It looks a little broken.

"This area has experienced drought this year." Xue Zhijing said to Yuan Jin, his eyes fell to the farmland, where there is no such scene of harvest around Bianjing City, like a wilderness.

Yuan Jin nodded, "Yes, my family has a piece of land here, and this year the land rent for tenant farmers has been exempted because there is no harvest."

Tonight they were going to rest at a post station in a small town, but the more they walked towards that small town, the more yellow and thin people they saw on the road.

Xue Zhijing even saw someone wrapping a scrawny "person" lying on the side of the road with a straw mat. In autumn, those slow-moving people only wore a pair of half-length trousers, with their upper body and feet bare. It looks like a beggar.

There is almost no fat on their bodies, the ribs of the upper body are visible, and the skin is like old bark, black and rough.

In her previous life, Xue Zhijing only saw such an image in old photos. In her era, even the beggars at the bottom were not malnourished to this extent.

How long has this been hungry?

When I arrived at the small town, I saw many unloved people sitting outside the city gate and inside the city gate. Some of them were wrapped in pitch-black quilts, and some were wrapped in a ragged mat. Without exception, they almost If it weren't for the black and bright eyeballs that would blink twice from time to time, it would look exactly like a clay sculpture or wood carving.

Are these refugees from drought?

Walking through the city gate, I saw a woman with a child in her arms, and beside her were two children who were so thin that their stomachs bulged out, one lying on the other.

Because it was a child, Xue Zhijing took another look and stopped the horse.

As soon as the woman saw her stop, her calm eyes suddenly lit up. She slowly got up with the child in her arms, raised her head, and looked at Xue Zhijing with a longing gaze, "This My lord, due to the drought, there is no grain of rice in the house, only a bowl of porridge distributed by the government outside the city every day, and the three children are starving to death, please do me a favor and take them away."

Xue Zhijing was startled immediately.

Being human in two lives, although the eunuchs in the palace mentioned that there will be a phenomenon of selling children and selling women in the event of natural and man-made disasters, but hearing about it and seeing it in person are two different levels of shock.

The heart hurts like being cut by a blunt knife.

When she came to this world, except for the poor quality of life at the beginning, her living conditions were almost the same as those of modern times, with rich meals and casual snacks and tea.But she really couldn't imagine that in an ordinary small city in this country, there would be people suffering from long-term hunger due to the drought.

An emotion called a sense of responsibility welled up in my heart.

It is no longer the sense of responsibility that I hoped to build a financial city wall for my compatriots in the previous life, but the sense of social responsibility for every living person in this country, every life that should be safe and happy.

And she can do it, right?