Guide to Traveling through the Northern Song Dynasty.

Chapter 988 0983 [Earthquake, Ground Crack, Drought, Sandstorm]

March, Yinchuan Prefecture.

Governor Zhao Ding personally inspected the spring plowing, not only bringing some officials with him, but also hundreds of cavalrymen.

Last year, the war delayed the farming season, and drought hit when crops were being replanted, resulting in a serious crop failure in Ningxia. Many grasslands were even withered and yellow, and herders were given livestock but no fodder, so they could not produce milk or grow fat, and could only eat them one by one.

"All the counties' water conservancy projects were repaired last year, and two new irrigation canals were dug as a work-for-relief program," said Jiang Zuoyi, the prefect of Yinchuan, pointing to farmers busy with spring plowing. "The snow has just melted, and the water level is gradually recovering. We are seizing the opportunity to irrigate the fields these days to avoid another spring drought."

Zhao Ding nodded in approval and reminded, "We should plant some millet so that we can still have some harvest in case of a severe drought. If we plant all rice, it will be all over if a drought strikes."

Jiang Zuoyi said: "We received corn seeds last year. This year, each household will plant half of their fields with rice and the other half with millet. Many farmers do not know how to plant millet, so we advise the agricultural officials to teach them step by step."

"Excellent." Zhao Ding praised.

Just as Zhao Ding continued to inspect the spring plowing, suddenly flocks of birds began to circle and scream, many voles and rabbits came out of the ground, and the cats and dogs in and outside the city also became restless.

Officials, civilians, and soldiers all stood there in a daze, looking around.

After a long while, Zhao Ding suddenly realized, "I am afraid there will be an earthquake disaster. I order the officials, soldiers and civilians to stay indoors as little as possible for the next half month. It is best to sleep in the open space outside the house."

There are officials who pass on orders everywhere, but it is hard to say whether people will listen or not.

Because there were so many visions that night, many people in and outside the city were afraid to stay in their homes.

In the end, nothing happened.

On the second night, many people stayed outside their homes.

On the third night, many officials went back to their houses to sleep. Zhao Ding personally patrolled the city. When he appeared, officials called on the people to leave their houses, but when he left, the officials turned a blind eye.

Fortunately, the earthquake occurred during the day!
Day 4, mid-morning.

Zhao Ding was working in the Governor's Mansion, which was a converted palace in the Western Xia Imperial Palace.

Suddenly, the ground shook and Zhao Ding was so frightened that he stood up holding on to the table, and then quickly hid under the table.

The temple shook for a while and the earthquake finally stopped.

Zhao Ding crawled out from under the table and shouted, "Get out! Get out and hide!"

There was no need for him to remind her at all, as the officials of the Governor's Office were already running out quickly, and the streets of the entire Yinchuan city were full of people.

The commander-in-chief, the provincial judge, the prefect, and the county magistrate came with their men one after another, reporting in panic that a house had collapsed somewhere again.

Just when everyone thought it was over, the ground shook again, and even more violently than the last time!

Zhao Ding saw with his own eyes that a house collapsed in front of him.

He forced himself to remain calm, summoned officials from both the military and political systems, and ordered them to immediately pacify the people and organize rescue operations.

All the people inside and outside the city were quickly moved to the open space in the suburbs and resettled in wing-block units. At the same time, brave men were recruited from the people to dig through the ruins to see if they could rescue the survivors, but they were not allowed to approach houses that had not collapsed.

As for the garrison, some are responsible for maintaining public order, while others participate in disaster relief.

"Boom!"

There was another aftershock of slightly smaller power, which frightened the soldiers and civilians involved in the rescue and made them flee to the open space in shock.

After living in the suburbs for three days and making sure there were no aftershocks, Zhao Ding allowed the military and civilians to return in an orderly manner.

Yan Bingxiao, the provincial governor, ran to Zhao Ding and whispered, "There is no need to worry about the foreign soldiers and civilians, but the local people are spreading rumors. They say that the souls of the successive rulers of Western Xia, unwilling to see their country destroyed, have returned to take lives and seek revenge..."

Zhao Ding had a serious expression on his face and called another meeting of senior military and political officials.

"The first priority right now is disaster relief and rescue. For those whose houses have collapsed, we need to organize people to rebuild their homes as soon as possible, and use work-for-relief to absorb the people who have no food to eat."

"The second thing is to bury the bodies. The old people of Xixia worshipped Buddhism, so they were willing to cremate them. Burn the bodies quickly to avoid plague after the disaster."

"The third is to guard against rebellion. The tribal chiefs and herdsmen, whose pastures and lands have been confiscated and divided, are very likely to take the opportunity to spread rumors and start a rebellion."

"The fourth is to appease people's hearts. Not only to appease them with disaster relief, but also to take the opportunity to spread propaganda. Let's say that this earthquake was caused by the overthrow of the Western Xia state and the complete severance of the dragon veins. After the earthquake, the Western Xia dragon veins were severed, and the Western Xia could never be restored! All disasters are pushed onto the Western Xia, and our Ming Dynasty is here to save the suffering and the distressed."

Yinchuan Prefecture quickly arranged everything and at the same time sent messengers by Pegasus to deliver the four decrees to various prefectures and counties in Ningxia.

Yinchuan Prefecture, where the governor was located, soon calmed down.

Unexpectedly, 20 days later, another earthquake occurred, and the epicenter moved to Xiazhou.

The ground in Xiazhou cracked and springs gushed out!
Then came the unprecedented sandstorm, which piled up into dunes 20 meters high. The dunes were connected like long embankments, and thousands of people were buried in the sand.

Historically, this series of disasters led to the rise of bandits in Western Xia and the spread of rebel forces across nearly half of the country - in Xingqing Prefecture alone, more than 10,000 people died in the earthquake.

If Zhu Ming knew about this, he would definitely not have sent troops last year, and would have waited until various disasters occurred before taking action.

Now it is equivalent to taking on a hot potato, and we have to spend a lot of energy and money on maintaining stability!
……

Eastern part of Mingsha County.

As early as the Xia and Shang dynasties, this place was a fertile land with thousands of miles of land, and the Qiang and Rong ethnic groups were nomadic here. During the Qin and Han dynasties, people from the Guandong region gradually migrated here to open up land.

After that, dynasties changed, and the people sometimes grazed and sometimes farmed, eventually forming a semi-agricultural and semi-pastoral system.

Soil erosion became increasingly serious, and many places turned into bare loess ridges.

In the early decades of the founding of the Western Xia Dynasty, the government organized the people to dig irrigation canals. However, in the past few decades, the irrigation canals have long been blocked and abandoned, and the crops have gradually changed from wheat to millet.

In June, the drought became more severe.

The three tribal chiefs here jointly summoned more than a dozen former large herdsmen and landowners to discuss rebellion.

Chief Xing Duo Baozhong said angrily: "We surrendered in Lingzhou last year. Although we didn't do much, we did a lot of hard work. We helped maintain public order and move supplies, but we worked so hard and got nothing in return? The damn Xuanzhou governor, judge, and commander recruited our people to dredge the irrigation canals, but they only dredged the irrigation canals on both sides of the Yellow River. None of our irrigation canals were dredged!"

"I've already inquired about it. Other tribes have received much more food than us after dredging the irrigation canals in Lingzhou! Here, we work so hard to dig the canals, but we can only get a little food to survive. And the seeds and livestock distributed to the people in Lingzhou are several times more than what we have here. Lingzhou also gives hoes and sickles, but we have none of that!"

"Everyone here is a big herdsman and a big landowner. After surrendering, there is no reward, but they want to divide our pastures and farmlands. This is the first year of Ming Dynasty. Won't it be more and more difficult in the future?"

"I heard that disasters have occurred everywhere in the counties of the northwest and northeast. This must be the heroic spirits of the emperors of Daxia who have returned. They will bless us to drive away the Ming army. We will raise an army here, and other tribes will raise an army elsewhere. When the time comes, we will elect a royal family member to restore Daxia!"

Similar scenes occurred in various places in Ningxia, but the situations were different.

The uprising of the three tribes in the east of Mingsha County was indeed forced by the government. Although the lower-class farmers and herdsmen were allocated farmland and pastures, the relief grain, seeds, and livestock they received were seriously insufficient, and the government was too lazy to even distribute a farm tool. The water conservancy repairs with work-for-relief were only carried out on both sides of the Yellow River, and nothing was gained from the barren yellow land here.

From top to bottom, all classes were incited to rebel!

As for Shizhou, the situation is different.

As soon as the leaders began to incite, a small herdsman ran to report to the authorities.

It was not the shepherds who reported the matter to the authorities, but the small herdsmen.

In farming areas, there are large landowners and small and medium-sized landowners.

In the grassland area, there are also large herders and small and medium-sized herders. This was true in the Liao Dynasty and the Western Xia Dynasty.

Small and medium-sized herdsmen were similar to the "good family children" on the grasslands and were the main group of conscripts. At least half of the soldiers of the larger elite troops of the Western Xia came from small and medium-sized herdsmen's families, because they had the financial resources to maintain war horses, weapons and armor.

The Liao Dynasty and the Western Xia suffered from the same disease.

Due to frequent wars, corruption and intensified mergers, the backbone of society (small and medium-sized herders) have become increasingly impoverished and their numbers are decreasing.

As a result, tax sources and military resources were affected, and the combat effectiveness of the recruited troops was seriously reduced.

You can understand it as the middle class in a modern country is shrinking in number and tending towards poverty!
There are even many small herdsmen who are so poor that they have to work as shepherds for other herdsmen.

That is, small landlords go to work as tenants for others.

Last year, the Ming Dynasty confiscated pastures and land, targeting only large landowners and herdsmen.

The even larger number of small and medium-sized landowners and herdsmen actually did not move. Although their assets remained unchanged, their taxes and military service were reduced, and they felt relieved and had hope.

Now that the big landlords and big herdsmen are inciting rebellion, how could it be possible that all the small and medium-sized landlords and herdsmen are willing to follow them?

Some people were so incited that they lost their ability to think.

Some people heard the incitement and were so scared that they quickly went to report to the police!
When the commander of Shizhou received the report, he immediately led his troops to attack. Before the big landlords and herdsmen could complete the conspiracy, they were all arrested by the Ming garrison and treated as rebels.

To be honest, as long as the civil and military officials in the prefectures and counties do not mess around, the remnants of the Western Xia will not be able to cause trouble.

Because the Ming government united the majority, small and medium-sized landlords, small and medium-sized herdsmen, farmers and herdsmen all stood on the side of the Ming Dynasty!
Perhaps they did not dare to openly refuse to rebel, but someone would definitely go to the government to report it, and the government would be able to quickly dispatch troops to suppress it.

If there is a big commotion in a certain province or county, there must be problems with the civil and military officials there.

The chaos in Mingsha County was very serious. Nearly 10,000 insurgents crossed mountains and rivers and reached the fertile area on the east bank of the Yellow River before they were discovered.

Before this, no one had reported it to the police.

The people on the east bank of the Yellow River were either forced to join the rebels or killed for refusing to rebel.

Some of those killed were even immigrants from Shaanxi. They didn't even have the right to choose, they were identified and beheaded directly!

Just as the rebels were crossing the river, the people on the west bank fled to the city, but the county magistrate refused to open the gate because he was afraid that there might be spies among the people.

Countless people could only flee to other counties, or go into the mountains with their families.

That night, Xuanzhou Commander Pu Quan came with 500 soldiers on horseback and attacked the camp at night, killing more than 10,000 rebels and chasing them north for dozens of miles, killing countless people.

Yang Yuan, who used Qin Hui's connections, came to be the prefect.

There was also the state judge Yan Shunqing and the magistrate of Mingsha County, who reported their achievements together with the commander Pu Quan.

They wiped out more than 10,000 bandits with only a few casualties, which was a real feat.

But there were flaws, as the thieves burned down several warehouses!
(End of this chapter)