This is the ploy of the big landlords: using the natural disaster as an opportunity to issue high-interest loans, seize more tenants, and also swallow up the land of self-employed farmers and small landowners.
But the big landlords never expected to encounter an idiotic County Magistrate like Zhao Yuankai. You say you want Silver, we'd contribute more to you, but why would you even greedily take the little stored grain.
Is Zhao Yuankai an idiot?
Of course not!
He just felt that even if he didn't provide any relief for the disaster victims outside the city, it wouldn't be an issue.
Just a few thousand disaster victims, starving for a few days, would realize there's no food around the county town and should scatter.
In his view, dispersing these disaster victims is much easier than providing them relief.
Providing relief could attract more victims and might even cause the victims to gather and stay just outside the city.
