Thousands of kilometres of Jiangnan became a swampy country, half of the people were flood victims. The people who survived the flood not only had to suffer the pain of losing their loved ones, but also faced a severe existential crisis, displacement, hunger and cold, crying for days.
Jingnan people than the vast majority of the victims are a little more fortunate, at least they do not have to bear the pain of the loss of loved ones.
“Our first priority at the moment is to resettle the people, the victims, and build more temporary premises in the flood shelter area, thatched huts are also possible. There is a shelter from the wind and rain resettlement place, the people’s heart also more security. If the people are not rescued, under the encouragement of some people who have the intention to do so, potential disturbing forces will be formed. There have been countless examples of disaster victims rioting throughout history, and it all boils down to untimely relief.”
Zhu Pingan summoned all of the county magistrates and organised them into groups, arranging for them to be responsible for resettling and rescuing the people in the different flood avoidance zones of the flood victims, stressing the purpose and significance of rescuing the people to them before they left.
“Don’t worry, county honourable father, this is a critical period, we will do our best to complete the task that county honourable father has given us.”
Zhang Tongsheng, Liu Fuzi and other xuxu officials had arched their hands to receive the order, and they were also well aware of the importance of rescuing the people after a disaster. In addition, they were also all Jingnan natives, and were naturally very attentive to resettling the townspeople.
“There is one more thing that we must pay special attention to, as the saying goes, after a great disaster there will be a great epidemic, after a flood, the houses, gutters, animal pens, etc. are all submerged, all sorts of filth, stolen goods, etc. are spread around, and rodents, mosquitoes and insects are inundated, making it easy to breed many kinds of epidemics and spread them amongst the population. While you resettle the people, you must do a good job of preventing epidemics. Firstly, plan thatched toilets in the flood shelter area, strictly prohibit the people and disaster victims from urinating and defecating anywhere, and must use the toilets in the planned thatched toilets; secondly, the water source should be the well water from the deep vein of the earth as the top, the well water seeping in from the river is secondly, and the ditch is the least, and it is strictly prohibited to drink the raw water, and it must be boiled before drinking it; thirdly, ensure that the people and the disaster victims maintain cleanliness and hygiene, change clothes often, and take a bath once every two days, and can mix the water withThird, the people and the victims must be kept clean and hygienic, wash their clothes often, take a bath every two days, and mix in the bath water herbs such as pellitory to prevent the plague; fourth, if any of the people or the victims are found to have fever or dysentery, they must be isolated. Fifthly, if there are people among the disaster victims who make trouble or cause trouble, all of them will be severely punished …….Well, this is all I can think of for the time being, if you have any good measures and suggestions in practice, report them to me in time.”
Zhu Pingan, as a modern man, knew the importance of epidemic prevention after a disaster and instilled the modern epidemic prevention experience into them.
“As you command.”
Zhang Tongsheng and the others had taken orders, none of them had thought about it so much and could not help but be more impressed with Zhu Pingan.
“Prefectural father, resettling and rescuing the people, grain and grass is essential. The autumn harvest stocks of the people’s homes were basically soaked by the flood, and the limited rations they had with them during the emergency evacuation are basically all exhausted at the moment. If the supply of food and grass is not enough, the people are starving, in order to fill their stomachs, I am afraid that there will be a change of heart.
Liu Fu Zi said archly, he was more worried about the food issue. Historically, when the people revolted, it was mostly because they couldn’t eat enough, couldn’t survive, and had no other choice. For example, the Yellow Turban Uprising during the Three Kingdoms period.
“Yes Prefectural Honour, this is the same reasoning as the soldiers and horses going before the food and grass.”
As soon as Fuzi Liu mentioned the food issue, the others all shared the same feeling and were equally worried about the food issue.
The reason why they are all so worried about the food problem is because they all know that in order to honour the bounty for the defenders some time ago, Zhu Pingan not only emptied his own personal pockets, but also converted the 12,000 stones of grain stored in the county office’s barn into silver, and cashed in the bounty for all of them. This thing, the whole Jingnan people all know, everyone praised all say county honourable words and faith, to county honourable praise.
The county honourable gentleman did so, indeed worthy of praise! However, it is expected that now there is a flood! In a year of famine, food is very important. The county honourable will barn storage grain converted into silver to everyone cash reward silver, that barn grain is not ……There is no more? Now is the time to use grain, how can everyone not worry ah.
“Everyone doesn’t need to worry, Mr Qian, you tell everyone how much grain is still stored in the barn now.”
Zhu Pingan knew what everyone was worried about, and calmly smiled slightly and said to the Qian Dianren at the side.
“Gentlemen, our county office warehouse currently has a total of 20,000 stones of stored grain.”Dignitary Qian was the only person amongst the crowd who was not worried about grain, after Zhu Pingan’s words, Dignitary Qian stepped forward and said to the crowd.
“What, twenty thousand stones? Hasn’t the county dignitary converted all the grain stored in the barns into silver to cash in the bounty for the young men guarding the city?”When the crowd heard this, each of them opened their mouths wide in surprise, their surprise overflowing.
Previously, the Jingnan warehouse had only accumulated 12,000 stones of grain after many years of savings. They had thought that there was no more grain stored in the barn, but they did not expect that there would be 20,000 stones of grain stored. A stone of grain was about 150 catties or so, and 20,000 stones of rice was 3 million catties. For a county, 20,000 stones of stored grain was a huge amount. Generally speaking, 10,000 stones of grain in storage at the county office would already meet the standard. The counties that could achieve 20,000 stones of grain storage were all big counties that had been famous for a long time, and there were only 50 counties in the entire Ming Dynasty.
“Mr Qian, really?”
Happiness came too suddenly, after the surprise, the crowd could not help but be a little sceptical, not quite daring to believe.
“This is not false. After the autumn harvest, the county honourable said to accumulate grains to prepare for the famine, while the rice is sufficient and cheap, ordered my warehouse to pick up 20,000 stones of rice, stored into the warehouse, as the reserve grain of the county government office, just in case of emergency, preventing the disaster from occurring in the first place. Half a month ago, when the continuous rain had just started, the County Honour instructed my barn to make preparations against flooding and flood prevention, and we made sufficient preparations according to the County Honour’s instructions, and it’s no exaggeration to say that my barn didn’t lose a single grain of paddy in this flood.”Dignitary Qian said to the crowd with conviction.
After receiving the confirmation, the crowd of Xuxu officials then relaxed their hearts. As the old saying goes: if you have food in your hands, you won’t panic in your heart.
After the crowd of Xuyun officials had all left, Zhu Pingan sighed. Grain ……Grain was a big problem.
Although after the autumn harvest, he himself drew on the experience of accumulating grain to prepare for a famine throughout the dynasties and took advantage of the fact that rice was sufficiently cheap and used the confiscated bounty silver from Eunuch Qian and the others to procure 20,000 stones of grain and stored it in the barn to prepare for a disaster.
Although 20,000 stone grain, enough 3 million jin, seems a lot.
However, for this flood, for the entire people of Jingnan County, these grains would not be much.
Jingnan was a large county, and with the mountain people, there were more than 60,000 people.
Since Jingnan’s flood prevention measures were a bit more effective than those of neighbouring counties such as Taiping County, and flood shelters had been set up, when the displaced victims of Taiping County and other neighbouring counties heard the news in these days, quite a number of them had fled to Jingnan’s neighbouring flood shelters. Preliminary statistics show that there are currently as many as 5,000 to 6,000 people, and this number is still increasing. As the news spreads, the number of people who come to Jingnan to escape every day will probably increase exponentially.
Calculating on the basis of six taels of grain a day for a single citizen, the 20,000 stones of grain would only be able to support about a month or so.
This was still an optimistic estimate.
A month looked long, but for the ancient times, the response time for the court to provide disaster relief could not compare to the modern times.
Of course, this was not the main concern.
What Zhu Pingan was most worried about was the court’s inability to provide relief for the floods in Jiangnan. In recent years, the Ming Dynasty disasters occur frequently, Shaanxi area for many years drought, the court relief for many years, the treasury consumption is quite a lot, coupled with the first half of this year, Zhili floods, drought in Jiangxi, Xuanfu Datong famine, the court relief has revealed the dilemma. Zhu Pingan has audited the Taicang silver warehouse, know that the Ming treasury is how empty, although he opened the Taicang shortfall case, Jiajing Emperor punished a large amount of silver, but the hand is not yet warm it, the northern captives South Japan military pay munitions on the hand. Now, I’m afraid to court want to disaster relief, a time are more than enough and not enough!
