Chapter 187 Panic and Countermeasures

"Honey, are they all nailed?"

His wife's voice woke Gazka from his memories, and he hurriedly said to the eaves: "Oh, everything is ready, we can lay the grass.

His eyes caught a glimpse of the scar on his wife's forehead, which was scratched by broken wood from the roof on the day of the hailstorm. Fortunately, the wound was not deep, and she and her children escaped by hiding under the dining table.

Mrs. Gazka tied up a large pile of thatch with a rope and watched her husband drag it up to the roof and spread it evenly bit by bit.

By noon, the roof of Gazka's house was finally restored to its original appearance.

Gazka entered the house wiping the sweat from his head, and saw his wife coming out of the inner room, placing a plate with a large piece missing on the table - this was already the most complete plate in their house - and said hello with a smile: "You're tired, let's eat something quickly."

Gazka casually ate a few spoonfuls of mixed vegetable soup and bread, and pushed the plate: "Save these for dinner. I will go to the fields to see if there is anything else I can pick up."

There is still more than half a month before the wheat matures, but there are already many green wheat kernels. Although they are mixed in the mud after being hit by hail, some can still be removed.

He wants to get every grain of grain he can! Because after this bad harvest, his family's food stock was only enough for three months, and as a tenant farmer, he had not yet paid the rent to Viscount Colbert.

Gaizka sighed silently, thinking about how much money he would need to borrow to buy the seeds that would be used for planting for half a year and sustain the family's livelihood until the autumn harvest.

He suddenly made a sign of the cross on his chest and said to himself: Thank you to the merciful Crown Prince, may God bless you and may you live a long life!

If the crown prince hadn't helped him pay off his previous debts, this failure would probably have bankrupted his family...

He stepped out, and after taking just a few steps, he heard the cry of a child coming from Joffrey's house not far away, and he could vaguely hear the child shouting "hungry".

Mrs. Gazka also heard the sound and followed her out. She looked at her husband and said, "There are still some green wheat kernels cooked last night. Do you want..."

Gazka nodded.

Joffrey contracted lung disease at the beginning of the year, and his family was already extremely poor. After this disaster, his family's bankruptcy was a foregone conclusion.

Gazka took the broken bowl brought by his wife and saw that there was a piece of black bread on the boiled wheat kernels. Without saying anything, he picked it up and walked towards the neighbor's house.

Joffrey's wife took the food with trembling hands and thanked her profusely, while the three sallow-looking children gathered around eagerly, grabbed the food and stuffed it into their mouths.

Gazka was stunned for a moment and then managed to say: "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"No, no more..." Mrs. Joffrey returned the empty broken bowl to Gaizka, lowered her head, and hesitated to speak, "These food have helped a lot."

She knew that although her neighbors were doing well, they never had the ability to support her all day long.

There is still a small half bag of broken wheat under her table. Even if she saves on eating, it will only be enough to last for half a month at most. As for the livestock, they were all slaughtered and eaten as early as last year. In other words, half a month later she had no choice but to go to the city with her family to beg.

Yes, given her family's situation, it's impossible to even get a usury loan.

Gazka sighed and was about to turn around and leave when he saw Father Marmont from the diocese walking in and said anxiously to Mrs. Joffre: "God bless you, you can apply for a 'bread loan'!"

The village woman was stunned, bowed first, and asked hurriedly: "Dear priest, what is the 'bread loan'?"

"In order to help families like yours, His Majesty the King asked the parish bank to provide you with a loan." Father Marment said, "You first go to the church and fill out an application there. From next month, you will be able to receive monthly The interest on a loan of four livres, or the equivalent in grain, was only six cents.

"Go quickly, I have to inform the Julian family."

He turned around and took two steps, then quickly turned back and said, "Oh, by the way, the seeds your family used to plant should not have been harvested yet, right?

"Then you remember to apply for seeds from the government relief. But only potatoes.

"Actually, that stuff tastes pretty good. At least it's better than starving, right? And it doesn't require interest. You can just pay back as much as you borrow at the end of the year."

After Father Marment and Gaizka left, Mrs. Joffrey's eyes suddenly turned red. She knew that although it was only 4 livres a month, it could barely save the lives of her family!

She took a deep breath, turned around and summoned her three children, ordered them to kneel down with her, and said in a trembling voice: "Thank you, His Majesty the King, for your mercy! Thank God! We are saved..."

She stood up under the child's ignorant gaze, turned her face, wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes, and rushed towards the parish church as fast as she could.

The situation like that of Joffrey's family is also happening in rural areas across France.

With Joseph's preparations several months in advance, although the horrific natural disaster still came as scheduled, France did not experience the hell-like situation on earth that it had in history.

If a family like Joffrey's goes bankrupt, they will have no choice but to flock to the city to beg, and most of them will become the backbone of Daqiming in the future. There are millions of families like this in France!

At the same time, the addition of millions of mouths in the city will immediately push up the price of bread significantly, making it unaffordable for urban residents. Historically, after a hailstorm, the price of bread in Paris quickly doubled, becoming the direct cause of the outbreak of the Great Grain.

At present, the steam engine has been brought to the countryside, which has helped the farmland that would have been barren due to drought to have a certain harvest. Although it is only green wheat, and only about 30% of the normal harvest, it is always better than nothing.

In addition, for provinces that grow a lot of potatoes, the impact of hail is very limited. Especially in the south, potatoes are basically mature. After the hail, farmers only need to dig potatoes out of the ground to ensure food for the second half of the year.

At the same time, the "parish bank" that Joseph had previously set up to help rural areas buy steam engines played an unexpected role this time.

Because now he has the French Reserve Bank in his hands.

After the disaster, Joseph and the cabinet decided that the French Reserve Bank would directly provide loans to parish banks, and then they would split the loans and lend them to the poorest farmers to ensure that the affected farmers would not starve to death.

This model of large-scale government funding for disaster relief was not seen at all in the 18th century. In fact, disaster relief in this way does not cost too much money. Nearly four million livres per month, a total of 12 million to 14 million will be needed before the autumn harvest, in exchange for the stability of the entire French grassroots.

For a country, chaos is always a serious consumption.

Not only does it consume money, but it also consumes the country's foundation and development prospects, and consumes people's confidence in the country. These are difficult to buy back no matter how much money is spent.

Historically, after the chaos of the French Revolution, it took more than ten years for the country to gradually return to the right track and start to develop again. This is because there was a figure who could turn the tide like Emperor Napoleon, otherwise it would probably take another ten years.

Moreover, for the 12 million for disaster relief, Joseph has his own additional plan, which is to use it to speed up the circulation of paper money.

The French Reserve Bank will officially issue paper money from next month, and the loans obtained by the parish bank from the French Reserve Bank will all be allocated in paper money.

Of course, for the stability of the countryside, the French Reserve Bank will also transport silver coins of equivalent value to each parish in the first two months, so that farmers can exchange them with paper money at any time.

After everyone gets used to paper money and has a certain degree of trust in it, the distribution of silver coins will be gradually reduced.

According to Joseph's plan, the first batch of paper money will be issued in 50 million livres, of which 5% will be over-issued. In other words, the actual silver coins prepared by the French Reserve Bank are 47.5 million livres.

Such a small over-issue ratio will not have any impact on the country's finance. In fact, appropriate inflation is also beneficial to economic development.

Therefore, the funds used for disaster relief only need to issue 200 million livres of paper money, which can basically be covered by the over-issued part.

However, Joseph also knows the importance of currency stability, especially in the early days of paper money, it must not be over-issued at will, otherwise it will be backfired. The core reason why British pound banknotes have been strong and gradually accepted by European countries is that their currency value is very stable.

In this period when gold and silver coins are gradually transitioning to paper money, the gold standard is the most suitable monetary policy, which also determines that paper money cannot be over-issued in large quantities.

…

In a big city like Paris, people can’t feel the despair of the farmers at all. The impact of drought and hail on them, in addition to repairing damaged buildings and public facilities, is mainly reflected in the price of bread.

When news of grain failures from all over the country came to Paris one after another, although there was no sign of food shortage at all, the price of bread immediately began to rise under the influence of people’s panic.

The price of bread in Paris is always the most important issue for the French cabinet, without a doubt. Because every time the citizens of Paris have opinions on the price of bread, it means that a riot will occur!

Palace of Versailles.

“So, many nobles protested against these regulations?”

Joseph flipped through the “Millers’ Obligations Act” in his hand and looked at Brian in front of him.

The Minister of Finance nodded helplessly: “You know, the mill tax is an important source of income for those people. Although the bill only assumes some situations, they are still very resistant.”

This is the bill submitted by Joseph last month, but it has not been passed.

The main content is: the miller has the obligation to carefully maintain the normal operation of the mill. If the mill cannot be used for two consecutive months, the parish where it is located will have the right to build a new public mill.

At present, the right to grind flour in most European countries is still in the hands of feudal lords. Even if farmers have wheat, if they want to eat bread, they have to pay taxes to the feudal lords' mills to grind flour.

Joseph thought about it and changed a word on the document, turning it into the "Millers' Bill of Rights".

"In this way, first describe the traditional mill rights in detail, and the obligations only take up half a page at the end. No one should have any objections."

At present, the rights of millers are passed down according to medieval customs. There is really no specific written decree, but the secular power is as solid as a rock. It is implemented everywhere, and even the court will make judgments based on it.

So Joseph directly wrote it into the decree, seemingly endorsing the nobles, but in fact the latter did not get any benefits. And the latter part of the obligation was actually added.

Brian smiled immediately: "Your Highness, I think they will definitely hope that the bill will be passed as soon as possible."

As the two were talking, a financial official knocked on the door, saluted them hurriedly, and then said anxiously:

"Your Highness, Archbishop, the news just received from Paris is that the price of bread has risen to 8 sous and 7 deniers per 4 pounds."

Brian's expression suddenly became serious when he heard this: "An increase of 7 dennies in two days?"

"It seems like that."

"These guys!" Brian stood up, "Have people inspect all bakeries immediately. Anyone who dares to sell less or secretly increase prices will be arrested immediately!"

The current bread price limit laws in Paris are so strict. If anyone dares to increase the price, even by just 1 denier, the shop owner will be arrested immediately.

Joseph was a little confused and said: "Archbishop Brian, the government has been emphasizing price limits every day since the hailstorm, and even the police are helping to monitor it. Why does anyone dare to increase prices?"

“You don’t know something,” Brian sighed. “Those profiteers in the bakery will obviously sell at the prescribed price, but secretly they will use various methods to increase the price in disguise.

"For example, they only sell 40 pounds of regular-priced bread every day, and then announce that they are sold out. Anyone who wants to buy bread has to go to the back kitchen of the store and pay some 'asking fee' before they can buy it.

“Or do a tie-in, put a bean-sized bit of jam on the bread, call it jam bread, and raise the price by a few denier.”

Joseph raised his eyebrows and said: "In this case, no matter how many people you send to check, it will be of little use.

"In my opinion, we should use our grain reserves to stabilize prices while the price increase momentum is not obvious."

Brian shook his head and said: "Your Highness, there is still plenty of food in the market, so there is no need to do this for the time being.

"You know, when those profiteers know that the grain harvest is bad, they will hoard the grain like crazy, waiting to sell it at a high price. Therefore, most of the grain put on the market now will be bought by them."

Joseph smiled, looking confident:

"Archbishop Brian, why have you forgotten that we now have the 'weapon' of an ID card?"

"ID card?"

"Yes. You first set up 'ticket collection points' throughout Paris, and anyone can receive a food stamp every day with their ID card.

"The grain reserve sells grain at a limited price, but you must have a grain stamp when purchasing. Each stamp can buy two pounds of bread of grain per day and cannot be used on alternate days.

"Those grain merchants only have one ID card themselves, so they cannot snap up large quantities of grain reserves."

Brian was not used to ID cards before. When the Crown Prince said this, his eyes immediately lit up: "No wonder you gave each ID card a different number. It turns out that it can be used like this!"

He hurriedly summoned a few of his men, explained Joseph's method, and asked them to do it immediately.

Joseph thought for a while and then said:

"The current increase in bread prices is basically panic-like. Therefore, we must try our best to divert people's attention so that they pay less attention to food issues."