Tibet.

Chapter 1408 Four Choices
In Hejian County, Yingzhou, tens of thousands of large tents were set up in the wilderness, stretching as far as the eye can see and looking extremely spectacular. More than 300,000 disaster victims are currently living in these temporary tents.

There is a large camp in the distance, which is the garrison of 10,000 troops. Inside the camp for disaster victims, there are teams of soldiers everywhere, maintaining order in the camp.

Wei Kaijiang, director of the Disaster Relief Office, was accompanying the Minister of Personnel Liu Yan on an inspection tour of the disaster relief camp to introduce him to the management situation.

"We have divided the refugee camp into seven areas, separated by trenches and fences. No fire is allowed in the camp. We will provide hot water and rice porridge. Those who violate the rules of using fire will be severely punished!"

Liu Yan nodded. The tents in this kind of large camp were all made of cloth, which were most afraid of fire. Once a fire broke out, the entire camp would be burned down, causing at least tens of thousands of casualties. Strict control over the use of fire was merciless, and a one-size-fits-all approach was the best way. All fire tools must be confiscated without mercy.

This is the lesson learned by the Disaster Relief Office over more than ten years. When they were transporting the victims from Hebei to Hexi, they had no experience and did not control the victims' use of fire, which led to a fire in a large tent halfway through the journey. Dozens of tents were burned down and nearly a hundred people were killed or injured.

After this bloody lesson, the Disaster Resettlement Office exercised extremely strict control over the use of fire. All fire tools had to be handed in. Anyone who dared to hide any would be severely fined 10,000 coins, or 10 strings of coins, once discovered. This was a large sum of money for an ordinary family, but the effect was immediate and there has not been another fire since.

"Are there any signs of an epidemic?" Liu Yan asked again.

"Nothing has been found so far. We strictly control drinking water and excretion. We have built a large number of toilets and sprinkled quicklime around them. Each tent is equipped with a urinal. Soldiers patrol day and night. Except for the occasional child urinating anywhere, we have basically not found any problem of excreting anywhere. And no one is allowed to drink raw water. We provide boiled drinking water every day."

In fact, Liu Yan was not worried about the management of disaster victims. The Disaster Relief Agency had rich experience and various strict systems. As long as everything was done step by step, there would basically be no mistakes. The key was to ensure timely material support and sufficient human, financial and material resources, and then the disaster relief work would be done very well.

Liu Yan's visit to Hebei this time was mainly to deal with the follow-up resettlement of the victims and to resettle them in Liaodong.

But in fact, this is a huge project. It is not something that can be solved by the disaster victims from Hebei. Liaodong needs to be prepared to receive them. For example, where will the disaster victims be resettled? How will the land be allocated? How will the houses be built? What will the road traffic conditions be like?

Therefore, Yan Quanming, the assistant minister of the Ministry of War, rushed to Liaodong with dozens of officials to coordinate the reception and resettlement of Liaodong.

Liu Yan asked Wei Kaijiang again: "What difficulties are you facing now?"

"There are no material difficulties for the time being. The biggest problem now is the instability of public sentiment!"

"Why is it unstable?" Liu Yan asked with a frown.

"They want to go back to their hometown, but their hometown has been flooded. Some people went back to see that after the flood subsided, the land had turned into saline-alkali land, and it would take decades for it to recover. They also know that they can't go back to their hometown, so every now and then, they would come to ask how we will resettle them in the future."

"Who are the people who come here to ask questions?"

"There was a group of elderly people, about 30 or 40 of them, who were said to be elected. They took advantage of their age and sat at the gate of the government office. They could not be driven away."

Liu Yan nodded, "I can talk to them!"

As soon as he finished speaking, a soldier came running over in a panic to report, "Reporting to the office, those old men are here again, making a lot of noise in front of the office tent!"

Liu Yan smiled and said, "I'll go take a look!"

The Disaster Relief Agency also had a temporary office in the camp, which consisted of one hundred large tents surrounded by a circle of fences. All kinds of disaster relief food and supplies were kept in the tents.

At this time, dozens of old men were sitting in the open space in front of the main tent. None of them spoke a word, and they sat on the ground with gloomy faces.

Hundreds of soldiers surrounded them, fearing that they would cause trouble. At this time, a soldier shouted, "Prime Minister Liu is here!"

More than a dozen officials surrounded Liu Yan and walked over. Only the senior officials called Liu Yan and others Shangshu, but the middle and lower-level officials and local officials called them Xiangguo. After all, they were assistant prime ministers and had the title of Zhongshu Menxia Pingzhangshi, so there was no problem in calling them Xiangguo.

Liu Yan walked in, took a look and said with a smile: "My dear fathers, if you have anything to say, let's go into the big tent and talk!"

An old man asked, "Can this official take charge?"

An official nearby said sternly, "This is Prime Minister Liu, who just came from the court."

Several old men shouted, "We don't care about the Prime Minister of Horse or the Prime Minister of Sheep. A good Prime Minister is one who can solve problems!"

Liu Yan was not angry either, and said with a smile: "If you have anything to do, go to the big tent to do it. Sitting on the ground will not solve the problem."

Everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. They all stood up, patted their buttocks and walked into the big tent. The officials quickly brought a bunch of small stools for the old people to sit on. Liu Yan also sat on one of them.

He smiled and said, "Who's going to speak first? What do you want?"

A thin old man raised his hand and said, "Let me say a few words first!"

"Please speak, old man!"

The old man said, "We have been here for almost a month. We cannot go home. The land has rotted. We are all a little anxious. How does the court plan to resettle us? At least give us an explanation!"

Liu Yan nodded and said, "The emperor is always concerned about you. I am here to express my condolences to you on behalf of the emperor and to tell you how the court will arrange for you in the future. Please don't be anxious."

Everyone quieted down, looking at Liu Yan eagerly. Liu Yan said slowly, "There are four options. You can choose for yourself. The first option is to resettle in other counties in Hebei. Each family will be given half an acre of residential land. Then they will have no land and can only be tenants. They have to pay rent every year, about 30% of the rent. Then they will be exempted from taxes for one year, and they will have to start paying taxes the year after next."

Everyone started discussing, and several elders asked anxiously: "Why can't we get some land? Doesn't the government have a lot of land?"

Liu Yan shook his head. "If we give you the land, what will happen to the local people? The land belongs to the court. If we give it to outsiders, they will definitely rebel. Besides, who would share land with the people in the past dynasties to help with disasters? If you stay in Hebei, you will definitely not get a penny of land. Half an acre of residential land is already a special subsidy from the emperor."

Everyone was silent. At this time, the thin old man asked, "Is there a plan to divide the land?"

Liu Yan nodded, "Of course there is. I just said there are four options, but I only talked about the first one. The next three options are all about allocating land. The second option is to relocate to Beiting and settle in Yizhou, Xizhou and Tingzhou. Each household will be given 200 acres of land and will be tax-free for 50 years. The third option is to settle in Liaodong, also with 200 acres of land per household and tax-free for 50 years. The fourth option is to go to the overseas Datang territory, with 300 acres of land per household and tax-free for 100 years. There are only four options in total. You can choose for yourself. The government will not force you."

There was a lot of discussion below. First of all, overseas was ruled out. The people of Hebei are relatively conservative. Unless they can't survive, no one would choose to go overseas.

Then Beiting was also ruled out, because Beiting and Liaodong had the same conditions, and Beiting was so far away, it would be better to choose Liaodong than Beiting.

In fact, there are only two options, either stay in Hebei as tenants, or go to Liaodong to become small landlords. For these farmers who have been exploited for a long time, two hundred acres of land is a very large piece of land, which is equivalent to being a landlord.

(End of this chapter)