My father Zhu Gaoxu

Chapter 846 Resettlement (Part )

"Sir, please see, this place was originally a town for the natives. Now that the natives have moved away, with a little repair, it can be enough to accommodate tens of thousands of immigrants..."

A young official pointed to a town ahead and introduced it to Li Qi as he walked.

Li Qi looked at the surrounding environment as he walked. Although the place where the natives lived was very dirty, it could still be used to resettle the victims.

In addition, green rice is still growing in the fields on both sides of the road. The earlier batches of immigrants who came here have already begun to work in the rice fields.

"Yes, these old towns can be used, and new villages must be built. After all, the number of immigrants this time is huge, and these old towns alone cannot accommodate them!"

Li Qi finally ordered again, and the officials accompanying him all claimed that they were right.

This is a town to the west of Chennai Port. As a destination for immigrants, several groups of immigrants have been resettled here. As the official in charge of immigration, Li Qi also rushed to Chennai Port to inspect it personally.

"Sir, a group of immigrants happened to arrive at the port today. Do you want to go and take a look?"

At this time, an official nearby came forward and asked softly.

"Okay, when I accompanied His Highness the Crown Prince to immigrate to the Ming Dynasty, I only sent these immigrants to sea, but I never saw what they looked like when they arrived in the Han Dynasty. I just happened to go and take a look today!"

When Li Qi heard this, he immediately became interested and agreed immediately.

After hearing what Li Qi said, the accompanying officials immediately made arrangements to shorten the following itinerary as much as possible. After visiting a few immigrant settlement sites, the group immediately returned to the port of Chennai.

When Li Qi and the others arrived at the port, it was already past noon, and the accompanying officials originally wanted to arrange lunch.

But as luck would have it, just when they arrived at the port, they saw a large fleet appearing on the sea in the distance. Judging by the flag, it was clearly the immigrant fleet.

So Li Qi didn't care about eating, and happily brought people to the dock, preparing to personally welcome these immigrants from afar.

The Port of Chennai is a newly built port and is not large in scale. The port is empty and there are basically no ships. Therefore, the immigrant fleet enters the port very smoothly and then docks at the berth.

Then the people on the ship who were responsible for organizing the immigrants got off the ship one after another, and the officials at the port also came forward to hand over and brought these people to Li Qi.

"The common people pay homage to Li Shangshu!"

Gouzi mingled in the crowd and saluted Li Qi solemnly. The officials at the port had just told them Li Qi's identity. They were also a little flattered when they learned that the minister of the imperial court came to greet him in person.

"There is no need to be polite. You have traveled thousands of miles to escort immigrants to Dahan. You are all heroes of Dahan. On behalf of His Majesty and His Royal Highness, I would like to say thank you for your hard work!"

Li Qi also smiled slightly.

This fleet is an immigration fleet organized by a non-governmental organization. There is no specific person in charge of the fleet, but a group of businessmen are jointly responsible for it. Each businessman has his own ship under his name, as few as one or two, or as many as many. Six or seven ships, but no matter how many, they were able to give up their business and help the Han Dynasty immigrate. This practice of relics and righteousness is also very commendable. Facing Li Qi's praise, these businessmen all said a few polite words, but they couldn't suppress the smiles on their lips. After all, being praised by a high official in the imperial court personally made their faces light up just by saying it.

Later, under the personal supervision of Li Qi, the immigrants on each immigration ship also disembarked one after another. There were special officials at the port to greet them and guide these immigrants to stay temporarily in the camp next to the port.

After all the immigrants had disembarked, Li Qi held a banquet at the port and personally entertained the businessmen who organized the immigrants. At first, the businessmen were a little restrained, but Li Qi behaved very kindly and took the initiative to toast several times. After asking about their situation on the road, the atmosphere gradually became more active.

"Everyone, you all came back from the Ming Dynasty. Does anyone know the details of this locust plague?"

Li Qi suddenly asked everyone again.

Regarding this issue, most of the businessmen looked at each other. They had returned from the Ming Dynasty, but most of them only operated in the ports of the Ming Dynasty, such as Guangzhou or Laizhou. Although they had heard about the disasters in the Ming Dynasty, some , but I don’t have a deep understanding.

"Sir, the common people do know a little bit!"

Unexpectedly, at this moment, a tall and thin young man stood up, and it was Gouzi.

"What's your name?"

Li Qi asked curiously when he saw the other party.

"Li Gou, a grassroots man, is originally from Kuangcheng. He went back to his hometown to visit relatives with the help of business half a year ago, but he did not expect to encounter such a huge locust plague, so he took his father and fellow villagers to flee with him, and witnessed the locust plague with his own eyes along the way. The tragedy caused!”

Gouzi’s original surname was Li, and their village was called Lijiacun. Originally, he had no serious name, so he was called Li Gouer. Later, when he became a man, he felt that his name was unpleasant, so he changed the word "dog" to "gou".

"It turns out we are still the same family. Please tell me quickly what you saw and heard when the locust plague occurred. Try to be as detailed as possible so that everyone here can listen!"

Li Qi said kindly again.

"Yes! The grassroots returned to Kuangcheng in mid-June. At that time, there was already a drought in their hometown. The crops in the fields were almost dying of drought, and there was not much water in the Yellow River. As a result, as soon as July came, locusts started to appear. The locusts are coming all over the place, and many old people say they are going to eat people..."

Gouzi was very eloquent, and when he talked about the scene of the locust plague, he described it in great detail, making listeners like Li Qi feel like they were actually there.

Gouzi started from the locust plague, and then talked about how people in the disaster area fled after the locust plague, and what they saw and heard on the way to escape. These are Gouzi's personal experiences, especially when he talked about the drying up of the earth and the roads. When the corpses of victims could be seen everywhere on both sides, the people around them also looked sad.

These businessmen all migrated from the Ming Dynasty, and some of them were victims of the disaster in Shandong. They also had the experience of fleeing, so hearing what Gouzi said now also brings back a lot of sadness. After all, they also have relatives and friends who were originally Falling on the way to escape, it is precisely for this reason that they will do their best to help these victims this time.

"In the end, it is thanks to all of us, the Han people, who worked together to help the victims board the ship. After running all this way, we finally arrived at the port of Chennai. I also want to thank you, Mr. Li, and all the adults for their hard work. Otherwise, we, the victims, I’m afraid he would have died on the roadside long ago!”

In the end, Gouzi thanked everyone, and by the way, he flattered officials like Li Qi. Of course, this was also true.

(End of this chapter)