Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 982 0977 [The Benevolent Are Invincible]

When Zong Wu set out from Luoyang, the royal family and clan members of Western Xia also set out from Yinchuan Prefecture and were taken to Luoyang.

Li Renxiao, the last emperor of Western Xia, was very pleased that Xingqing Prefecture was changed to Yinchuan Prefecture.

He even felt that it was because of his decisive decision to surrender his country that the great Xia Dynasty was able to retain this bit of dignity.

The real Yinchuan is actually to the northeast of Mizhi, which is the Yinzhou City that Wang Yasha first captured.

It was called Yinchuan County in the Tang Dynasty and was once called Yinchuan City in the Song Dynasty. It was the birthplace of the Western Xia Dynasty and the location of the ancestral tombs of the Western Xia royal family.

Now that Western Xia has been destroyed, its capital has been renamed Yinchuan. Isn't this an attempt to preserve the dignity of Western Xia?
Haha, Li Renxiao certainly didn’t understand that the reason why Emperor Zhu changed his name was purely because of some special memory.

Before leaving, Li Renxiao asked to worship Buddha, and Ningxia Governor Zhao Ding readily agreed.

The royal family and clan members escorted by the soldiers walked towards Chengtian Temple with their heads down. Before they entered the temple gate, they found that the plaque with the three characters "Chengtian Temple" had been taken down.

"Ugh!"

Li Renli sighed.

Soon after entering the temple, we heard more and more sighs.

Because everyone has seen clearly that anything with Xixia characters has been or is being destroyed.

In the square in front of a hall, more than a dozen carpenters were busy.

The carpenters took planes and plane away all the inscriptions on the plaques that had been removed from the temple. They probably didn't want to waste wood, so they plane away the Xixia characters and then carve Chinese characters on them again.

Li Renxiao wanted to see the stele carved by his biological mother, so the Ming soldiers took everyone to the Forest of Steles.

"Hoo ho ho..."

A chaotic friction sound was heard from the Forest of Steles. When the royal family and clan members of Western Xia went over to take a look, they saw that the words on all the steles were being worn away.

Li Renxiao cried and muttered to himself, "Why is it so, why is it so..."

Li Renli whispered, "Destroy history and writing, and there will be no more Tanguts in Daxia. Emperor Zhu did the same to the Jurchens of Jin."

It is not destroyed directly.

Before the stone tablet was polished, a copy was also made and transported to the Luoyang Imperial Palace for safekeeping. These inscriptions have historical value, recording a certain year, month, event, and person, leaving them for future literary and historical scholars to study.

Except for being preserved as literary and historical materials, Xixia characters are not allowed to exist anywhere else.

As groups of monks were escorted out of the temple, Li Renli could not help but ask, "How will the Ming Dynasty deal with the monks?"

The civil servant in charge of escorting the Xixia nobles said: "Chengtian Temple, Gaotai Temple, and Jietan Temple are only allowed to retain 100 monks each, and the rest must return to secular life. Each temple is only allowed to retain 800 mu of temple land, and the rest of the land will be given to the families of soldiers, Han immigrants, and local farmers."

Li Renxiao couldn't help but say, "This is disrespectful to the Buddha. You shouldn't do this. Keeping the temple and the monks can actually bless the Ming Dynasty."

The civil servant laughed and said, "The three major temples in Yinchuan Prefecture have countless monks and temple properties. They have exploited so much of the people's wealth, but why didn't they bless Xixia with good weather and good harvests? Instead, they brought disasters to Xixia year after year."

After this question was asked, Li Renxiao was speechless. He lowered his head silently and turned away.

The next day, everyone set off for Luoyang.

They sailed south along the Yellow River and found that the farmland on both sides of the river had been replanted, but due to severe drought and water shortage, even the water level of the Yellow River had dropped significantly.

The Ming soldiers and civilians who remained in Yinchuan Prefecture, as well as the military and civilian families who were sent there later, and the local Xixia farmers, were using various methods to obtain water for irrigation.

Many craftsmen were making water wheels by the river. Some of the water wheels had already been completed and were being driven by human power or animal power to draw water from the Yellow River and pour it into the ditches.

Some of those irrigation canals already existed, while others were newly dug this year.

From time to time, you can see many farmers and herdsmen being gathered together to dredge the half-abandoned irrigation canals. All of them are for work-for-relief. While the government is doing infrastructure construction, it is also to solve the problem of food. Otherwise, many of these farmers and herdsmen would starve to death.

"Prince Shu..." Li Renxiao quickly changed his words and asked, "Brother, why weren't these irrigation canals cleared before?"

Li Renli replied ashamedly: "We dredge the canal every year, but corrupt officials profit from it, embezzle the government's appropriations, and withhold the laborers' food rations. They also tortured and starved the laborers to death, causing them to riot, and then the case was left unresolved."

Li Renxiao sighed when he heard this: "Alas, if the irrigation and agricultural policies are neglected like this, how can Daxia not perish? If I could have succeeded to the throne ten years earlier, I would have restored production and given the people a rest."

Xixia is gone, no matter how much I say, it's useless. Li Renli consoled himself: "It's better to surrender early, at least it can save countless people. With the severity of the drought this year, Daxia will inevitably suffer from famine again. I don't know how many of these farmers have starved to death. Now that Daming has come, it has organized farmers to build water conservancy projects, which can be regarded as giving farmers food to survive."

They came all the way to Lanzhou, crossed the whole of Shaanxi, and found that Shaanxi was also dry.

Construction projects were being built everywhere, some were building city walls, some were repairing river embankments, some were expanding official roads, some were digging canals, and some were flushing deep wells... After several years of drought, the people of Shaanxi could no longer bear it. Every household had little surplus food, and the government could only absorb the hungry people through work-for-relief.

Relying on grain transferred from other regions, we supported the people of Shaanxi to overcome difficulties and at the same time seriously developed Shaanxi's infrastructure.

Li Renxiao was born in the deep palace since childhood. Although she knew what this meant, she only knew it.

Li Renli was shocked as he walked along. "Only China, with its vast territory, could bring in so much food for disaster relief. Shaanxi was experiencing such a severe drought, but there were no dead bodies on the roadside. It's hard to imagine that they could take advantage of the opportunity to build large-scale projects."

In fact, this year’s drought is not the end. Next year will be the year of the most severe drought!
The people of the Northwest and the Ming Dynasty court had to continue to hold on for another year, pooling the nation's resources to support several northwestern provinces, and even providing relief to most of Henan and Shanxi.

The temperature during the Little Ice Age had reached its bottom, and the average annual temperature at this time was lower than that at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

After a few more years, the temperature will start to warm up, and the next hundred years or so will be a warming period, which will last until the middle of the Yuan Dynasty in history, when it will start to decline again.

Floods in the south and droughts in the north, floods in the south and droughts in the north…Floods in the south and droughts in the north every year!

Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty had been building water conservancy projects in the south since its founding, and a large amount of farmland was forcibly returned to the lake, and the landless farmers were directly relocated to counties and prefectures with insufficient population. Otherwise, I really don't know how we would have survived.

"Brother, look over there!" Li Renxiao pointed to the construction site in the distance.

Li Renli looked toward the northeast of the official road and saw a Ming official sitting on a high platform under the scorching sun. A huge flag was erected on the platform, with four big characters embroidered on it: Man can conquer nature!
Li Renli was shocked and said, "How can you use these four words? Isn't this blasphemy against the emperor?"

They were escorted to the front post station, and Li Renli couldn't help but raise some questions.

The postmaster explained, "Those four words were written by the emperor himself, and were bestowed upon the governor of Shaanxi to fight drought. The official on the high platform you see is the governor of Shaanxi to fight drought appointed by your majesty, and he has been stationed in Shaanxi since last year."

Night falls, but the heat is still there.

Li Renxiao stood in the small courtyard of the post house, accompanied by two soldiers guarding him.

At some point, Li Renli came over.

Li Renxiao seemed to be talking to himself, but also to Li Renli: "My mother taught me Chinese studies since I was young, and my father asked great scholars to teach me the classics. I thought I already understood the meaning of the classics, but after these days, I really know what it means to be a king in a place of a hundred miles."

Li Renli was also well versed in Mencius, and recited the original text along with his words: "If the king implements benevolent policies for the people, reduces punishments, reduces taxes, and deepens the ploughing and makes weeding easier..."

Mencius's words mean that if we can implement benevolent policies, lighten taxes and levies, let the people have enough food and clothing, and know all kinds of principles and virtues, even if it is a small country with an area of ​​only a hundred miles, we can let the young and strong people in the country take sticks and defeat the fierce and powerful Qin and Chu armies. Because Qin and Chu are strong, they have been fighting all year round and delayed farming, and the people can't farm well to support their parents. Parents are hungry and cold, brothers, wives and children have fled, how can they defeat the benevolent and righteous army that is well fed and warm?

Mencius said, this is called the benevolent is invincible!
Li Renxiao said: "Before the Ming Dynasty sent troops to attack, the people of Dingzhou and Jingzhou near the capital of Daxia had already rebelled. This is because they were hungry, cold, and unable to support their parents, wives, and children. When the Ming Dynasty sent troops to attack, how could such people be recruited as soldiers and be willing to fight to the death for their country? So before the two armies even fought, the armies fled."

"Your Majesty...my dear brother is intelligent, but unfortunately he was born at the wrong time." Li Renli couldn't help but sigh.

This wise and benevolent emperor of Western Xia, who brought Western Xia into its most prosperous era, was now taken to Luoyang as a king of a fallen country before he had the chance to implement reforms.

He could only sigh in the small post station and use his own experience of the loss of his country to verify the Confucian scriptures.

The team continued to move forward and finally arrived in Chang'an.

An angel who had been waiting for a long time came and read the imperial edict, then took away a large number of women from the Xixia royal family and clan.

Those who were taken away were mainly Li Qianshun's young concubines, as well as dozens of Richard's young concubines. Due to their special status, their destinations had to be decided by Zhu Ming, and now they were taken away to be rewarded to the meritorious soldiers.

All senior generals will have a share, and Yue Fei will also get one of Li Qianshun's concubines.

The two empresses dowagers were also taken away and were about to be sent to Wangchuan Valley to spend their later years with President Zhu.

Zhu Ming didn't care whether the emperor accepted it or not, he just threw it over. Old Zhu was really overwhelmed, so he let the two queens dowagers be maids, otherwise he really didn't know what to do with them.

Li Renxiao's queen was not taken away, but all the concubines were dispersed.

He carefully inquired about his biological mother's whereabouts and learned that Empress Cao was going to serve the Ming Emperor. He was angry and ashamed, but also somewhat relieved. At least, this arrangement did not humiliate the Xixia royal family too much, and it was the best destination for Empress Cao.

The night before leaving Chang'an, Li Renxiao lay in bed and cried.

(End of this chapter)