Go back to the Ming Dynasty to be a thousand households

Chapter 332 Catastrophe
At the end of Wanli 28, Huang Laifu led the army back to Wuzhai Fort.For the victory of flat broadcasting, all the soldiers will be rewarded, and with the family reunion, everyone is very happy.

After many days of large-scale celebrations, Huang Laifu resumed the government affairs of the two towns that had been suspended for many days.Although Huang Laifu has been away from the two towns of Datong, Shanxi for nearly a year, nothing unusual happened in the towns. The five-year plan of the two towns is still in full swing according to the original plan, and everything is in order.

This time, Huang Laifu led the troops of the two towns to fight. The results of the two towns' armies also proved the success of Huang Laifu's previous reforms in the military affairs of the two towns. Therefore, after Huang Laifu came back, these governances continued.In addition, after Huang Laifu returned to Shanxi, many Bozhou captives who were escorted back were also scattered and distributed to work in various farms and mines.All the native officers among these captives were singled out and killed by Huang Laifu. These ordinary captives were scattered and lacked the slightest organizational strength, so they had no power to resist Huang Laifu's arrangement.

Although there are many disputes, the two towns of Datong, Shanxi have been generally calm this year, and they have progressed smoothly according to Huang Laifu's five-year plan.However, in another place in Ming Dynasty, this year has not been peaceful, and most of the uproar was the dispute over mining affairs between the officials and Emperor Wanli.

And during this year, the officials were delighted to discover that they had many more ways to attack the emperor, such as using natural disasters.

Due to the deepening impact of the small ice river disaster, in the 28th year of Wanli, from the beginning to the end of the year, disasters occurred frequently in Daming, and many of them were catastrophic.For example, on April [-]th, the entire province of Shandong was hit by hailstorms. In Weixian County, Laizhou Prefecture, the hail was as big as chicken eggs, and all the wheat seedlings in the territory were injured and killed, and many men and women were killed. Zichuan, Jinan Prefecture The hailstorm in the county was like eggs and bowls, destroying thousands of houses and damaging hundreds of hectares of wheat fields.

On July 23th, Xinghua Mansion in Fujian Province was hit by a strange wind and heavy rain. For five days and five nights in a row, seven or eight out of ten government houses and private houses in the territory collapsed.On August [-], another huge earthquake hit Nan'ao, Guangdong and Zhao'an, Fujian. Houses in the territory collapsed, and people were crushed to death...

In addition, there are countless disasters, large and small.And all of this was cited by civil officials as a warning from heaven. They had no intention of managing the lives of the people under the disaster, but used it to vigorously attack Emperor Wanli's mining tax policy.It is believed that it was because of Emperor Wanli's struggle with the people that he provoked a series of wrath from the heavens.In addition, during this year, because of the mining incident, the civil uprising in Wuchang and Linqing was even more widely used by them, and waves of memorials were handed over to the cabinet. Although they were all suppressed by Emperor Wanli in the end, it also exhausted him physically and mentally. Feeling overwhelmed.

All kinds of matters were recorded in the residence newspaper, Huang Laifu just watched and sighed secretly, the power of the Ming special interest group is really too great.These officials, in order to represent the interests behind themselves, can be said to be persevering, and they have gone on and on, but they still dress themselves up like the embodiment of morality, which is really speechless.

But what worries Huang Laifu is that disasters in Daming will only become more frequent in the future, especially next year. According to the information he extracted from his laptop, next year there will be a severe drought that will spread across the country, killing and injuring residents. There were countless refugees, and a large-scale plague followed.

And all of this will make Emperor Wanli extremely uncomfortable.We must know that in ancient times, natural disasters were frequent, which meant that the king had no virtue or that there were traitors in the court. The officials could attack the Wanli Emperor with confidence, and even made the emperor have to cancel the mining tax policy. Huang Laifu was unwilling. have witnessed.Now he is already standing in the same trench as Emperor Wanli. If the mining tax policy is cancelled, he is in danger of being affected.

Whether it is for the country or himself, Huang Laifu must support Emperor Wanli's mining tax policy. However, although his "Wuzhaibao News" vigorously sang praises for the emperor, it is clear that in the huge civil power and public opinion, this kind of The strength is still too shallow. It seems that the number of newspaper offices of "Wuzhaibao News" must be greatly increased.

In addition, now I have to prepare for the severe drought that will spread across the country next year. Those officials can fight for their own interests, but I don't have such a cruel heart.In particular, this severe drought has spread to the whole of Shanxi, and there will be a large-scale plague after the disaster, so I can't let myself take it lightly.

This plague is a big killer in Ming Dynasty right now, it is extremely contagious, and millions of people will die every now and then.In the eighth year of Wanli, there was a major plague in Datong Town. At that time, there were ten rooms and nine empty rooms, which was terrible.In the 14th year of Wanli, there was a great epidemic in the capital area, and four out of ten died.

The plague broke out in northern Daming every few years, causing a large number of deaths each time, and even became more and more serious with the frequency of droughts.In the last years of Chongzhen, the plague once again spread to Beijing, leaving the capital at that time empty, and even all households were wiped out.Even the soldiers of the Beijing camp at that time were seriously injured after suffering from the plague, so that when Li Zicheng attacked, there was only one weak soldier guarding every three crenels on the Beijing city wall. How could they resist the attack of Li Zicheng's elite army?
The plague was so harmful, no wonder Huang Laifu took it so seriously.

In fact, the sign of a severe drought has been obvious since the second half of this year. Since summer, there has been no rain in the north of Ming Dynasty, and the same is true for the whole of Shanxi.However, due to the large-scale construction of the two towns of Datong in Shanxi, large-scale construction of farmland, large-scale construction of water conservancy, large-scale development of mines, and large-scale road construction, etc., a large number of labor units are needed everywhere, making the civilians in the territory even There are no crops in the fields, and there are many places where you can get a chance to survive, which makes the sense of crisis between the military and civilians in the territory not strong.

Of course, the soldiers and civilians outside Shanxi did not have such good luck. Suddenly, from the autumn of the 28th year of Wanli, a large-scale refugee wave appeared in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty, and most of them flooded into the two towns of Datong, Shanxi. While making the soldiers and civilians of the two towns dissatisfied with outsiders robbing them of job opportunities, they also feel quite proud. In this year, it is a blessing for the soldiers and civilians of Shanxi to have such a place of Taoyuan in Shanxi.

……

The 28th year of Wanli passed quickly, the 29th year of Wanli, and the year 1601 in history came.

At the Spring Festival meeting, Huang Laifu asked the Ministry of Civil Affairs to make relevant drought-resistance preparations for the upcoming severe drought. , Winning a bumper harvest as the most urgent task at present.In the two towns, due to the large-scale water conservancy of the farms and the newly added military settlements, even if there is a severe drought, they can still have the same bumper harvest as in previous years.

However, among the households in various places, how can their small-scale farming methods withstand the invasion of natural disasters?Therefore, Huang Laifu, in addition to disseminating the text to other places to learn from Wuzhaibao Farm as much as possible and mobilizing the people to dig all water sources, also decided to expand the scale of construction in the two towns and increase the opportunities for local households to use work as relief.

At the same time, Huang Laifu also ordered the Cultural and Health Bureau under the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Governor's Mansion to do a good job of sanitation and epidemic prevention. After the disaster, there will be a major epidemic. Hygiene awareness of people everywhere.A large-scale rodent extermination campaign was also carried out in the two towns, and many marmots were killed.

In order to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of the people, the Governor's Mansion ordered the purchase of rats, one penny for each rat, and finally received millions of rats, which became a joke among civil officials everywhere.

Of course, Huang Laifu would not pay attention to the dark psychology of those civil servants. Since the Spring Festival, the rodent eradication campaign has been vigorously launched in the two towns.

As Huang Laifu had predicted, since the beginning of spring in the 29th year of Wanli, there was no rain in the northern provinces of the Ming Dynasty. This situation continued until June and still did not improve at all.Counting from June last year, there has been no rain in the north of Ming Dynasty for a whole year. Beizhi, Shandong, Shanxi, and Henan are covered with red land for thousands of miles, and even many provinces in the south are also suffering severe drought.

On the sixth day of June, the Ministry of Rites played: "From February to early June, there has been no rain for half a year inside and outside Jifu, the soil veins are scorched, the river wells are dry, and the two wheats are dry!"

According to He Erjian, the Beizhi patrol also played: "Zhang Shicheng, a miner in Zhangshuidong, Fuping County, was hungry, so he killed a six-year-old boy and cooked it!"

The governor of Yunnan said: "There is a severe drought in Yunnan, the people are very hungry, and the price of rice has risen sharply. Every bucket of rice costs four coins!"

The governor of Henan played: "..."

All of a sudden, drought alarms sounded all over Daming.

At the same time, the plague was rampant in the northern provinces, and the plague began to spread. The Henan Tour Press played: "Xingyang County, Henan Province has a severe spring epidemic. People die without separation from house to house, and there are no pedestrians on the road in March."

The unprecedented severe drought brought disaster victims to all parts of the north. Tens of thousands of victims flooded into the capital every day. Emperor Wanli ordered relief and personally prayed for rain.However, this natural disaster opportunity made some civil servants very happy. They thought they had seized the opportunity, and for a while, large-scale memorials to attack the disaster of mining tax flooded into the palace again.

On the [-]th day of June, Hu Ke gave a memorial to Nakata Dayi: "Your Majesty drove away wolves and tigers, drove them to eat people, and made people in the world peel their skins and suck their marrow, causing natural disasters and earth cracks, landslides and rivers to dry up. The disaster started from the emperor. , the people's anger comes from the accumulation of grievances, but they want to block the people's eyes and ears to explain themselves. Today, the people of the four quarters, seeing that His Majesty still has no intention of changing after the warning from heaven, know that the disaster will be incomprehensible, and they will definitely mobilize for change. For this reason, Only by killing all mine tax supervisors to thank the world can the country be saved!"

Then Li Dai, Minister of the Ministry of Officials, said: "The drought in the northern Zhili prefectures is severe, the people are in dire straits, the vegetation is exhausted, the bark is ready-to-eat, the roads are full of corpses, the village is empty and smoke-free, and there are 18 people sitting and waiting for relief. Xia Xia The wheat has died, and the autumn seeds have not been sown, so that the people sit and wait to die, how can they bear it! Then send eunuchs to dig mines and collect taxes, how can the common people not be trapped! Today the village is empty, the mountains are empty, and the county The county is empty, the Ministry of Finance is empty, the national treasury is empty, and the poverty of the people is like a patient whose blood is exhausted!"

Li Sancai, the governor of Fengyang, said: "Once the rebels collapse, the small people will all become the enemy's country."

Wen Chun, the censor of Zuodu, said: "The people in the country are trapped by floods, droughts, and mining. They have no desire to live happily. Please stop the mine tax immediately and arrest the tax envoys Li Feng, Yang Rong, Chen Zeng, Gao Huai, etc. people!"

……

There were wave after wave of memorials attacking the harm of mining taxes, and even Shen Yiguan, the new chief minister of the cabinet, went up to persuade Emperor Wanli to stop tax envoys from all over the country.However, in Ruchao's memorials, few people seriously talked about how to deal with the catastrophe in front of them, which made Emperor Wanli very angry.

At the end of June, the "Wuzhaibao News" of the Jingshi Newspaper suddenly published a signed article by Huang Laifu: "Is it true to serve one's heart, or is it a private name? --On natural disasters are just normal phenomena of nature!", one stone caused a thousand waves , the publication of Huang Laifu's signed article caused a great uproar in the official circles of the Ming Dynasty!

(End of this chapter)