Optimus One Pillar of the Ming Dynasty

Chapter 147 Disaster Relief

The big plan to build a flood discharge area has been decided, and the next step is to resettle the victims.After all, you have turned other people’s homes into “eight hundred miles of water in Liangshan”, so you have to find another place for them to live and settle down!
The issue of resettlement has always been a very thorny issue in the feudal dynasty. After all, the main mode of production of the Han nation in this era was the small-scale peasant economy based on land. The main means of production in society and the main family asset of the people was land.Therefore, people in this era have very strong rural concepts, and if you want them to leave their hometowns, this will trigger civil unrest.

So faced with this problem, the Ming Dynasty monarchs and ministers were in a dilemma again. They discussed and discussed each other's ideas, but they could not come up with a plan that everyone thought would work.Therefore, Emperor Jiajing was a little annoyed after hearing this. He ignored the ministers, looked at Wang Daoqiu and said: "Wang Qing! You have such a brain, you always have some new and unique methods, which always make me feel enlightened. Tell me about it. , how do you plan to resettle these millions of victims?"

Being called out by Emperor Jiajing again, Wang Daoqiu had no choice but to stand up and reply: "Your Majesty, what I actually want is to arrange for those victims to go to Liaodong. Liaodong is bigger than my hometown of Zhejiang, and there are several fertile fields. There are tens of millions of acres of Liaohe Plain, but the population there is not as high as that of a prefecture in Zhejiang, my hometown. Liaodong can be said to be truly vast and sparsely populated. There is no problem at all in housing millions of disaster victims. And it is also very easy to get to Liaodong from Shandong. Conveniently, you can take a boat through the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, or from the estuary of the Yellow River, or from Tianjin Wei, into the Bohai Sea. Then pass through the estuary of the Liao River in the Bohai Sea, and go deep into the hinterland of Liaodong."

"The land in Liaodong is fertile, and it's all black soil that can produce oil. The Liaohe Plain has tens of millions of acres of flat land, which is very suitable for reclamation into farmland. However, the winter there is long and extremely cold, and there are nearly Seven months is not suitable for the growth of crops. Moreover, the water in the soil in Liaodong in winter will be frozen into ice by the severe cold, mixed with soil to form frozen soil, which can be up to five feet thick. To put it bluntly, the land in Liaodong is frozen during the year. For more than four months, it was a five-foot-thick piece of ice that could not be plowed by manpower and animal power, which is why Liaodong is now extremely desolate."

"Although Liaodong has disadvantages in terms of climate, it is suitable for farming five months out of the year. Its land is also the most fertile in the Ming Dynasty, and there are few floods and droughts. This is also true. At least in my opinion, the farming conditions in Liaodong should be considered the best in the area north of the Huaihe River and Qinling Mountains. To be honest with you, your majesty and all the princes in the court, one of my Wang Daoqiu’s dreams is to one day be able to take charge of Liaodong. Governor, I want to build a canal there to connect the Liaohe River and the Songhua River. After entering Liaodong from the mouth of the Liaohe River in the Bohai Sea, my Ming Dynasty ships can enter the Songhua River through the Liaohe River, and then from the Songhua River to Heilongjiang, Nenjiang, and E Arguna River, Ussuri River."

"Your Majesty, all the princes in the court, I, Wang Daoqiu, hope that during my lifetime, I can restore the slave Gandusi that I had during the Chengzu period and expand thousands of miles of territory for our Ming Dynasty. I can cultivate thousands of hectares of fertile land in Liaodong into fertile farmland for my people of the Ming Dynasty. , to turn the Great Northern Wilderness into Beidacang. To be honest, if Your Majesty and the court officials trust me, I, Wang Daoqiu, am willing to serve as the governor of Liaodong for the rest of my life and open up Northern Powerhouse for our Ming Dynasty."

Wang Daoqiu is currently the second-rank Shizhong and the left Shilang of the Ministry of Personnel. To put it bluntly, he is the close minister who holds the power of national personnel.It can be said that this position is envied by everyone and has a bright future. If nothing unexpected happens, it is the minimum to join the cabinet and become the prime minister within ten years, and there is also a great hope to be ranked as the first minister.

But now Wang Daoqiu did not want to give up such a promising job and wanted to be the governor of Liaodong. This shocked Emperor Jiajing and all the courtiers.

You must know that although Liaodong is a province in the Ming Dynasty's administrative divisions, it has jurisdiction over 25 military garrison posts, two independent states, and not even a prefecture-level administrative unit.

What's even more sad is that among the province's total population of only a few hundred thousand, more than half are military households responsible for guarding the border. Besides, in Liaodong, except for a small pass connecting the mainland with Shanhaiguan, the other four sides, the south is the sea, and the other three sides are surrounded by Jurchens. , surrounded by Mongols, wars continued, and border troubles were serious.

Even if a high-ranking servant and the left servant of the Ministry of Civil Service do not do it, but they want to run and be the leader of hundreds of thousands of reckless soldiers and barbaric land, they may be killed by those beast-like women at any time. The real people, the Mongols, had their heads chopped off.This made Emperor Jiajing and all the courtiers confused. They looked at Wang Daoqiu with surprised eyes, trying to see clearly what was going on with their Wang Shizhong.Could it be that he had been punished by God just now and his head was numb?

After watching it for a long time, I couldn't understand it. The ministers didn't know what to say if they couldn't understand it.Xia Yan, the second assistant, wanted to leave work and ask Emperor Jiajing to marry Wang Daoqiu, so as to drive Wang Daoqiu to that barbaric place so that he would not be an eyesore.But reason told him not to do this. After all, everyone knew about his hatred between Xia Yan and Wang Daoqiu.

Xia Yan didn't dare to say anything, and the other ministers didn't know what to say, so the atmosphere at the scene was tense.Seeing that the court meeting was cold because Wang Daoqiu invited him to patrol Liaodong, Emperor Jiajing had no choice but to come out and say: "I rely heavily on Wang Qing and often ask for advice, so it is not appropriate for Wang Qing to go to patrol Liaodong. But Wang Qing opened up In northern Xinjiang, I still appreciate the suggestion of opening up the Liaohe River and Songhua River and rebuilding the Nuergandusi. In this way, the cabinet, together with the Ministry of Officials, will select an official to patrol Liaodong as soon as possible to implement Wang Qing's national policy of opening up northern Xinjiang."

We, the Han nation, have always claimed to the outside world that we are a nation that loves peace and is good to our neighbors.But the fact is that flower planting has been the highest achievement in the history of dynasties, whether it is monarchs, ministers or ordinary people.As for the countries neighboring us, our history books say that they are good neighbors and friendly, and we help them by planting flowers.But every time they mentioned planting flowers, they would always criticize her. They had a deep hatred for planting flowers, saying that planting flowers caused them blood and tears.

So this also caused Zhonghua to say that he was gentle and a little white rabbit.But the people of the world believe that Zhonghua, like the Bear Country, is an evil race that is extremely fanatical about territorial expansion and has an aggressive nature. Whoever comes next to him will be unlucky.

Precisely because all dynasties of Zhonghua had regarded opening up the border as their highest achievement, when he heard Wang Daoqiu's plan to open up thousands of miles of borders, the blood in Emperor Jiajing's chest that wanted to be the great emperor surged.

However, Emperor Jiajing wanted to keep Wang Daoqiu by his side as a white feather fan for himself, but he couldn't bear to have Wang Daoqiu without him for a long time.So Emperor Jiajing came up with a compromise plan and sent an official to Liaodong to implement the plan to open up northern Xinjiang. With the assistance of Wang Daoqiu, he, Emperor Jiajing, took charge of the arrangement.

In this way, Wang Daoqiu's plan to be the leader in Northeast China was killed by Emperor Jiajing as soon as it was proposed.Unable to be the leader of the veterans in the Northeast and unable to go to the Northeast to promote Mandarin, Wang Daoqiu proposed to Emperor Jiajing: "Your Majesty, according to the usual weather, the first snow will fall in Liaodong in two months. . And all the millions of victims must be transported to Liaodong within two months, and winter houses must be built and winter supplies prepared for these millions of people in Liaodong. With all due respect, I think it is such an arduous task. With the ability and ethics of officials in Liaodong now, I'm afraid they can't do it. Therefore, these disaster victims should stay in the mainland for resettlement this winter, and they will be sent to Liaodong in batches for permanent resettlement next spring. This is safer."

Wang Daoqiu questioned the ability and conduct of Liaodong officials to Emperor Jiajing and the important officials of the Ming Dynasty. He did not believe that those officials in Liaodong could properly resettle the millions of disaster victims.After listening to Wang Daoqiu's words, Emperor Jiajing thought about it and thought so.

So Emperor Jiajing said to Wang Daoqiu with some helplessness: "What Aiqing said is very true. With the current ability of Liaodong officials, it is really embarrassing for them to properly resettle millions of victims. There is a new governor of Liaodong, and let him straighten out the affairs of Liaodong, so that we can properly receive the victims next year. By the way, Aiqing, the matter of Liaodong is not urgent, and there is still half a year for us to do it slowly. It’s just that Now that there are millions of disaster victims, what should we do? After all, let those disaster victims watch their land soak in the water, and if the imperial court does not rescue them, they will definitely cause chaos."

"Your Majesty, this is easy! People will have random thoughts when they have no hope of idleness all day long. And if you can find some work for them, let them work, and let them earn wages, then their emotions will be much more stable. . To put it bluntly, Your Majesty, my disaster relief strategy can be summed up in four words: work instead of relief."

Emperor Jiajing was talking about social reality, and Wang Daoqiu also recognized it. So in response to this reality, Wang Daoqiu proposed the "work-for-relief" method to Emperor Jiajing.In the past dynasties of Zhonghua, disaster relief was all about giving porridge to the victims to survive until the next harvest. The victims could eat themselves, and the disaster was over.Now Wang Daoqiu is saying that he will use work as relief, which has no precedent before!Therefore, Emperor Jiajing still doesn’t know what the work-for-relief program means.So he looked at Wang Daoqiu with a question mark on his face, and asked: "Relief through work, my beloved, what do you mean by this?"

"Your Majesty, work-for-relief, as the name suggests, is to change the original simple porridge relief. The court only provides relief to the old and weak who have no ability to work, and allows those who have the ability to work to earn their own wages to support themselves. For example, to provide food to the elderly The canal, the Huaihe River, and the Yellow River are dredged and dammed, such as road construction and mining. And Your Majesty, the Tongzhou Industrial Zone will start leasing factories in ten days, and tens of thousands of workers will be needed there, as well as the Xuanfu The iron mines on the edge and the coal mines in Wanping all need workers, who can absorb some of the victims."

"Yes, yes, yes, what Aiqing said is so right. The court should provide relief to those who are old and weak among the victims. But for those who are young and strong, why should the court let them eat and drink for free? ? Besides, river construction and roads do require laborers. To use work for relief, to use work for relief, this idea is of great significance to the country and the people. It is a great idea! I think it is feasible, what do you think?"

"Minister and others seconded"

The disaster relief method of providing work-for-relief is more economical and more able to maintain social stability than the previous method of simply giving porridge. These discerning people can see it.So as soon as Emperor Jiajing asked the question, all the ministers of the Ming Dynasty who were standing in the Longevity Palace immediately came out to support the implementation of work-for-relief.

Emperor Jiajing was very happy to see that all the ministers in the court supported the method of providing relief through work. He smiled and said to the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue: "Wang Aiqing, your Ministry of Revenue can save your worries this time. The disaster relief silver and the river work are two sums of money in previous years." , now you just have to contribute a sum. So this year, you can’t cry to me anymore about being poor and saying that you’ve lost money.”

"Your Majesty, forgive me for the death penalty. Although the work-for-relief method offered by the King's Minister can save some money, it can't actually save much. After all, for the relief like before, we only need to give each of the victims a bowl of gruel a day. Yes. To use work for relief, we must give them tools and pay them wages. Therefore, this money will not save much, and the accounts of the Ministry of Accounts may still be in deficit this year. Therefore, I sincerely request your majesty to allocate some money from the inner treasury. The silver comes out to supplement the work-in-relief fund."

Upon hearing Emperor Jiajing's suggestion that the Ministry of Revenue could no longer report a deficit this year, Wang Gao, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, rushed out of work to cry for poverty and asked Emperor Jiajing to allocate funds from the internal treasury for disaster relief.Emperor Jiajing was not angry when faced with the Minister of the Ministry of Finance who was once again concerned about his private money.

Because in that decree of King Dao Qiu, there was an item that Wang Gao was sent to prison for bribery in September.In that Wang Daoqiu Dynasty's decree, the previous items have now been fulfilled, including this July River victory over Caoxian County.Therefore, I was always superstitious about Emperor Jiajing, and now I have no doubt about Wang Daoqiu's decree from heaven.Therefore, he also firmly believed that Wang Gao, the Minister of Household Affairs, could still serve as a minister for two months at most.

Emperor Jiajing didn't bother to argue with a minister of the Ministry of Finance who would go to jail for two more months.However, Emperor Jiajing could spare some private money for the great achievements of opening up territory and expanding his territory, which would make him famous throughout the history books, but he was not willing to be taken advantage of for disaster relief.

So as soon as Wang Gao, the Minister of Household Affairs, finished speaking, Emperor Jiajing lowered his head and thought for a while. He ignored Wang Gao, but looked at Wang Daoqiu and asked: "Wang Qing, if the imperial court does not provide a tael of silver, let you go and settle it." Dear those millions of disaster victims, can you do it?"

I don’t want to spend money on disaster relief, damn!This Emperor Jiajing wants to have sex for nothing!However, as Wang Daoqiu, who is well aware of the business models of later generations, this matter really does not bother him.

So he pretended to think for a while and then said firmly to Emperor Jiajing: "Yes, Your Majesty, but I have conditions."

Wow, I just said it casually, but I didn’t expect this to actually happen!So when he heard that Wang Daoqiu could really let him have sex for free, Emperor Jiajing immediately said excitedly: "Ai Qing, can you really resettle those millions of victims without spending a tael of money from the court?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, as long as Your Majesty hands over the operating rights to the canal and the Caoguan Wharf on the Yangtze River, as well as the mining rights within a hundred miles on both sides of the Shandong Canal, and the right to designate suppliers of items needed by the palace, I will not have to spend any money. The imperial court gave one tael of silver to settle the millions of Shandong victims."

"This, this, my dear, I don't understand what you are saying. Can you explain it to me?"

"Yes, Your Majesty! The operating rights of the Caoguan Wharf on the canal and the Yangtze River that Chen Gang mentioned are, to put it bluntly, the Ministry of Household Affairs collects his taxes at Caoguan, and provides food, accommodation, and supplies for those passenger and cargo ships while they are berthed in Caoguan. , ship repairs, and the transfer of materials for people disembarking. I will lease these profitable business operations to those businessmen, just like the business assistants who rent out the Tongzhou Trade City..."

"No, no, Your Majesty, this is not possible! Your Majesty, our Ministry of Revenue is willing to allocate 500 million taels of silver for the resettlement of Shandong victims, but the Ministry of Revenue will never give up the management rights of those Caoguan Wharfs."

As soon as Wang Daoqiu talked about the "money path" of the expressway service area in later generations, Wang Gao, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, did not wait for Wang Daoqiu to finish speaking, and hurriedly came out to protect this money path for the Ministry of Revenue.I didn’t know about the management rights of this channel before, but now it is a golden doll. This cannot be lost in the hands of Wang Gao!Otherwise, Wang Gao, as the number one idiot in the Ming Dynasty's Household Department, would be scolded by generations of Household Department staff!

(End of this chapter)