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Most of the civil unrest in history was caused by famine.
As for the Ming Dynasty, it can be said that it perished due to a civil uprising caused by famine.
But if we look closely at each dynasty, we find that almost none of them had formulated a comprehensive disaster relief plan.
The Song Dynasty had some measures, such as recruiting young and strong people from the disaster victims as garrison troops when a disaster struck. After the young and strong people were recruited, the remaining old, weak, women and children would be easy to suppress even if a civil uprising occurred.
But it turns out that this move was not a very smart one.
First of all, recruiting young and strong people away will reduce the self-rescue ability of the victims and make the disaster situation worse.
Secondly, it would make the army more and more bloated. The "redundant soldiers" in the Song Dynasty had always been the primary problem that troubled the court. Military expenditure usually accounted for more than 60% of the annual revenue. At the peak, the annual military expenditure exceeded 70 million guan, which was equivalent to the annual revenue of nearly 20 years in the early Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, the practice of the Song Dynasty must not be imitated. The Ming Dynasty was destroyed by famine and civil unrest. The tragic scenes are still vivid in people's minds, and everyone still feels sad when they think about it.
Today, Qin Mu proposed a disaster relief plan. The ministers present not only felt that it was necessary, but also believed that it could not be delayed.
Yang Chao, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, first said: "Your Majesty, once a disaster occurs, the first thing to do is to solve the problem of feeding the victims. As long as no one dies from starvation, the victims will be easy to guide and control.
In the past, when a disaster occurred in a local area, it had to be reported to the court first according to the procedure. After the court confirmed the disaster, the Ministry of Revenue would allocate relief money and grain. Such a series of reports not only took a long time and delayed the relief time, but also officials at all levels were prone to passing the buck to each other, and riots broke out again during the disaster.
In view of this, I suggest setting up Changping warehouses in each province. The specific location does not have to be in the provincial capital, but preferably in a prefecture or county in the center of a province. Or, depending on the actual situation, it can be set up near disaster-prone areas in each province. In this way, when a disaster occurs, relief grain can be distributed to the victims as quickly as possible.
The funds of the Changping Warehouse can be withheld from the two taxes of each province each year as special funds. In good years, we will collect as much grain as possible to avoid low grain prices hurting farmers. In bad years, we will sell grain to keep grain prices down and stabilize the market. In the event of a disaster, we will do our best to provide disaster relief.
After hearing this, Qin Mu turned and asked, "What do you think, ministers?"
Sima An replied: "Your Majesty, I am afraid that there will be many problems in the specific implementation. First of all, the production of each province is different, such as Gansu, Ningxia, and Liaodong. At present, the main livelihood is grazing, and there are relatively few people engaged in farming, so the grain output is limited. If we set up a Changping warehouse, we need to consider where to buy grain and store it.
Furthermore, disaster-prone provinces often have relatively low tax revenues each year, so the amount of money that can be withheld is also less. This requires that the proportion of withheld funds be increased accordingly based on the actual conditions of each province. Otherwise, if grain reserves are insufficient, the system will be useless.
In places like Jiangnan, where tax revenue is high and grain production is plentiful, people’s livelihood is prosperous, and the people are more resistant to disasters, the probability of famine is relatively small, and the withheld tax revenue is relatively small.
Finally, there is the management of the Changping Warehouse. According to Yang Shilang, grain is purchased in good years, sold in bad years, and provided relief in disaster years. The high mobility of money and grain makes it very easy for corruption to arise. If there is no effective supervision, the establishment of the Changping Warehouse will not only be useless, but will become a place for corruption.
"That's right." Qin Mu nodded repeatedly. "No matter how good the policy is, the key is to implement it in practice and supervise it effectively in the long term."
Yang Chao continued, "Your Majesty, I think that the Ministry of Revenue can send personnel to take charge of the daily management of the Changping Granaries in each province, or another department can be set up in the court to manage them vertically. The provincial governors, provincial inspectors, and officials in the Changping Granaries will be responsible for daily supervision.
If there is a serious case of corruption in the granary of a province, not only the officials involved will be held accountable, but also the chief official in charge of the granary affairs in the court and the officials in charge of supervision in the provinces will be held accountable.
When a disaster occurs, the local chief official will apply to the local granary for grain allocation based on the severity of the disaster, and the officials in charge of the granary will in turn supervise the local officials' disaster relief efforts to prevent them from embezzling relief money and grain.
Qin Mu asked calmly, "What if the local officials are in collusion with the officials who manage the Changping Warehouse?"
“This…” Yang Chao didn’t know how to answer for a moment.
Qin Mu's question was by no means intended to make things difficult. The ministers present knew very well that such a thing was not only possible but also had a very high probability.
The reasons why disaster relief money and grain are most easily embezzled throughout history are: first, disaster relief funds are usually large; second, when a disaster occurs, the situation is urgent and chaotic, making it difficult to count how much relief money and grain has been distributed, and it is also difficult to investigate afterwards.
Therefore, whether or not to be greedy depends mainly on the conscience of the disaster relief officials;
But when it comes to money, conscience is the most unreliable thing.
In order to make more money, local officials often exaggerate the extent of disasters when reporting them. Worse still, they even dare to report false disasters when there are no disasters. This kind of thing has been common in all dynasties.
The reason why such things happen repeatedly is mainly because there are problems with the administrative structure. The local administrative structures in successive dynasties are similar, power is too concentrated, and there is a lack of corresponding supervision. Therefore, no matter how hard the upper level tries, it is difficult to avoid such behavior.
Although Sima An and his companions were smart, what could they do in the face of such a structural problem? Everyone remained silent.
Qin Mu said seriously: "This problem must be solved. You can go back and think of a solution slowly. Within ten days, no matter what you do, you must give me a feasible solution. Now, I will talk about the corresponding supporting disaster relief matters.
As Yang Qing said, once a disaster occurs, the first thing to solve is the food problem, but it is obviously not enough to just solve the problem of food for the victims.
As the saying goes, you have to endure hunger and cold. Once the food problem is solved, there is still the problem of clothing. Except for drought, other disasters are mostly sudden, and it is difficult for the victims to get dressed.
Therefore, in addition to food, the Changping Warehouse should also store some coarse cloth, cotton clothes, quilts, tents and other emergency items. "
Yu Chenglong said, "Your Majesty is right. I think we should also have corresponding reserves of epidemic prevention medicines. After a major disaster, there is often a major epidemic. Looking back at previous natural disasters, it is often the epidemics caused by natural disasters that have claimed more lives. Therefore, we cannot take epidemic prevention lightly."
After hearing Yu Chenglong's words, everyone could not help but think of the great epidemic that spread from the north to the capital in the late Ming Dynasty. The scene of nine out of ten houses being empty was terrifying. The reason why Li Zicheng was able to capture Beijing so quickly was largely related to the spread of the plague.
That devastating plague enabled Qin Mu's policy of "three guarantees of sanitation at the doorstep" to be implemented smoothly, and ordinary people were quite responsibly implementing it, which led to a qualitative leap in the sanitation conditions in all prefectures and counties of Daqin.
At the same time, officials' attention to the epidemic has greatly increased, so it is not surprising that Yu Chenglong could think of these and put forward corresponding plans.
Qin Mu said: "Yes, epidemics and disasters go hand in hand. While providing disaster relief, we must also prevent the epidemic in a timely manner. As for storing medicinal materials in the Changping warehouse, I think it is not advisable. Medicinal materials cannot be stored for a long time, otherwise they will become ineffective.
To solve the problem of epidemic prevention, we have to start with the construction of hospitals in each county. I have previously proposed to establish hospitals in each state and county, which will be managed by the Imperial Hospital and integrate medical treatment, teaching and scientific research. If this policy is implemented, epidemic prevention can be handed over to the hospital. "
Many officials had opposed this before. After all, apart from the Imperial Hospital, no local hospital had ever been established by the government in the past. However, despite the opposition from many officials, Qin Mu had been vigorously promoting the construction of the medical system.
First, he established a military medical school, recruited women to practice medicine, and stepped up the training of medical talents. Once the time was ripe, he would definitely force the improvement of the medical system.
It would be great to take advantage of the issue of disaster prevention and control to push forward this effort.
In addition to developing the medical system, Qin Mu also wanted to take the opportunity to recommend the construction of another system. He didn't say it now, forcing the ministers present to go back and think about it.
Ten days later, when they couldn't come up with an idea, Qin Mu would find a gun and come up with it according to his own ideas. He even thought about who to use as the gun. He looked at Sima An, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.
Sima An keenly sensed something, and although he didn't understand what it meant, he couldn't help feeling a little uneasy.
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ps: It's the middle of the month, please support me with monthly tickets. This month's monthly tickets have been hovering at the last or second place in the category list, it's dangerous! Sincerely ask for monthly tickets.
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Finally, the Chinese national football team qualified for the Asian Cup as the first in the group! For a fake fan like me, I don’t care about the footwork or the formation. What matters is that you dare to fight and win. In the match against Uzbekistan yesterday, the Chinese national football team lost a goal in the first half, but they fought hard at the beginning of the second half, played with momentum, and finally fought back two goals. To be honest, I haven’t watched the Chinese national football team win for a long time. This time, I was really excited. Thumbs up! (To be continued..)
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