Hou Men Splendid

Chapter 163 The Emperor's Decision

On the fifth and sixth day of the lunar new year, the heavy snow didn't stop for a moment, and before going to court, memorials from all over Luodu City had already poured into the court hall.

Unexpectedly, the snow that fell in the evening was so violent, not to mention the outside of Luodu City, and several residential houses in the north of Luodu City were also crushed by the heavy snow.

The memorials in the seventh palace of the first lunar month have been piled up very thick, and they were all reported by the county government in the suburbs of Luodu City. Many villages were in trouble, and the villagers had nowhere to settle down during the Chinese New Year. Shao Ziyu and the others went to the court ahead of time, and the emperor summoned them urgently Several ministers discussed the matter.

Allocating money and dispatching manpower, the places where people are temporarily resettled in various towns must be set up immediately, and there is also the problem of hunger and cold, cotton clothes and food must keep up.

It is also mandatory. On the eighth day of the Lunar New Year, the imperial court began to collect food from the ministers of the court. This is still in the outskirts of Luodu City, and I am afraid it is a place farther away. Wouldn't it be more serious in some places in the north?

The Prince of Bei suggested to send an imperial doctor to go to each small town to prevent the common people from being caught off guard and causing more people to die of illness.

These emperors adopted them one by one, but when several ministers suggested that if refugees flooded into the city, resettlement sites should also be set up in the city, the emperor rejected this suggestion. All resettlement sites can only be set outside Luodu City, and must It is ten miles away, and a checkpoint must be set up ten miles away from the city gate to prevent refugees from flooding into the city.

The emperor's reason is also very simple. Under the imperial city, there are refugees who are likely to cause riots. Those who can be resettled ten miles away from the city will be resettled, and those who cannot be resettled cannot stay outside the city forever. When there are too many people, there will be many diseases, so they cannot spread. to town.

Except for the unprepared heavy snow, all the follow-up measures seemed to be in order. The snow on the first ten days of the new year was much smaller, and the heavy snow stopped on November 12. People thought it would be good if the snow fell. On the night of the thirteenth, the snow started again. On the side of the palace, urgent reports from several northern states have arrived, and the disaster situation is much more serious than here.

The emperor sent officials and imperial physicians to accompany them. Even though there was a resettlement site, many people died of hunger and cold. Because they were worried about the spread of the cold, these victims were transported far away. Conditional big families opened warehouses for relief for many days, but they couldn't keep up with the plundering of these lives by the cold.

But the really terrible thing is yet to come

The heavy snow continued until the [-]th. From the end of the year to now, the snow has not melted, and it has accumulated thicker and thicker. When the snow stopped and the sun began to melt, the disaster came.

It’s not the coldest time when it snows. The real cold is during the period of snowmelt. In previous years, the heavy snow fell until the seventh and eighth day of the lunar new year. After the 15th Lantern Festival, the city basically didn’t see it very much. At the beginning of the month, there was still no light to melt, and what the ministers were worried about happened. The cold disease began to spread among the victims at the moment when the snow melted and the temperature dropped. One village was connected to another, and it started from Huocheng, which is north of Luodu City. , The terrain there is low, surrounded by mountains, and the snow is deep. Once the snow melts, the cold air will not go away, and even the imperial physicians in Huocheng have suffered.

The people who were still alive began to migrate to the south, and the officers and soldiers couldn't stop them halfway. All the way south, some people died of illness, and the cold syndrome was transmitted to others along the way.

It is not difficult to cure the cold syndrome, but in such an environment, without good care, the cold syndrome is not easy to get better, and people often go there before the disease recovers. In the snow-thawing weather, the environment is humid and cold, and other diseases are more likely to occur Later, when the court learned that there were refugees coming towards Luodu City, the emperor issued an urgent order to strictly guard within ten miles outside Luodu City to prevent the refugees from approaching.

All the ministers’ petitions were rejected several times. The prince of the north asked the imperial physician to go outside the city to separate the uninfected people and bring them to the city for resettlement. The emperor disagreed. For the sake of the people in the city, they should not be allowed to bring this disease. Come in.

After Shao Ziyu retired from court, he took time to go back to Shao’s house. Lin Qingran was instructing Guanyan to send the prepared cotton-padded clothes and quilts to the outskirts of the city. Hearing Shao Ziyu talk about the emperor’s decision, he was silent for a while, “If these people know, what should they do? How heartbreaking."

The reason why these refugees flock to Luodu City is because they know that this is the imperial city, and there is their most admired emperor, who will care about the people of the world at dawn. This is like the belief that people insist in their hearts. There will be a way to survive. Who knows that whether they are sick or not, the emperor will stop them ten miles away from the city. Even healthy people are not allowed to enter the city. It seemed more indifferent.

"Prince Bei and several ministers have entered the palace several times, and the Empress Dowager has even appeared before." Shao Ziyu patted her hand, "We can't control these things."

"Of course I know, but from the standpoint of those innocent people, I originally thought that they would have a chance to enter the city once they got outside the city. It was also a hope for them to survive. They depended on the sky and the earth, and depended on the emperor. No one could rely on it." Well." Lin Qingran had a look of sarcasm on her face, people who are infected with cold should be quarantined, but those who are healthy are not willing to enter the city after being checked, and all the refugees live together, and they are sick even if they are not sick

Soon a lot of refugees flooded outside the city. When people are most helpless, they always think of the most helpable person, that is the imperial court. There is a high checkpoint ten miles away, and the wooden stakes are stuck in the snow that has not yet melted. To prevent these refugees from moving forward, many resettlement sites have been set up outside the checkpoint. Clothes and food are shipped out of the city, but what they need more is a separate place and a residence where they can see a doctor.

Many refugees are holding their children and hoping to let them enter the city. After the doctor's inspection, there is no problem. Let the children enter the city to live in a better resettlement place. The key is to survive, but these officers and soldiers are blocked. And cold.

These officers and soldiers also tried to evacuate the people, and the official roads were blocked, but at this time, everyone wanted to survive, so how could they evacuate.

The Prince of the North begged the Empress Dowager again after several unsuccessful attempts to enter the palace. The Empress Dowager, who had not dealt with the government affairs for so many years, came down with several orders to ask the Prince of the North to set up a resettlement site within ten miles outside the city. These people who are sick or not are separated so as not to infect them all.

After receiving this decree, Prince Bei took people directly outside Luodu City. It is quick to build temporary resettlement sites when there are many people, but these resettlement sites are built directly on the ground, and the inside of the brazier is still damp. People spread a lot of thin wooden boards on the ground to separate them from the wet ground. The imperial physicians will see the doctor at the resettlement site ten miles away, and the healthy people will move to the resettlement site within ten miles.

At the beginning of February, the heavy snow had not completely melted, and the signs of early spring had already arrived, but the weather was still freezing. The emperor was so defensive because he did not want Luodu City to be affected by the cold, but this thing was not brought in from outside. However, people living in the city will also get sick. From the resettlement sites near the collapsed houses in the north of the city, the cold disease has quietly spread in Luodu City.

This seemed to be the first time that the emperor faced such a big disaster since he ascended the throne. Natural disasters cannot be prevented. In the past, where there were floods and droughts, the experience was not as profound as this time.

The Tai Hospital must control the cold syndrome so that cholera does not become an epidemic. After there are cold syndrome patients in Luodu City, every household also starts to take precautions. The snow-thawing weather is too humid and cold, so they should burn charcoal pots and drink soup. It seems that the whole city is filled with a smell of medicine.

In the palace, there was news that a palace maid fell ill, and on the side of Shao's family, sister Ning also fell ill.

There is nothing lacking in the house, but Ning's body is weak, the weather outside has been thawed for a long time and the weather is cold and cold, and the wind is biting. She sneezed twice when she went out, and she caught fire that night.

There is basically no one to find in the imperial hospital. Lin Qingran asked Si Qin to go to the Wei family to ask for someone, and then went to the Wei family's medical center to find a doctor, and took the medicine according to the prescription. The doctor said that the problem was not serious, Sister Ning This disease took a lot longer than others.

In such an environment in the city, many people have contracted cold syndrome. Wouldn’t it be more serious for those refugees outside the city? The Prince of the North once again requested that those people within ten miles be brought into the city and placed in a better place, but the emperor still disagreed. There were also cases in the palace, and several court ladies who suffered from wind-cold disease were directly brought out of the palace for treatment.

Shao Ziyu came in and out these days, and he rarely stayed at home. Liu Shi, the concubine of the Northern King, came to visit Sister Ning, and talking about the father-in-law, the Northern Prince, "I seem to be five years old, and my husband followed him outside the city. Run." It's not because the sage won't let go, in fact, it's not a big deal, the disease of wind-cold is not intractable.

"Your Majesty, take care of your life." Lin Qingran still remembers that when the late emperor was in power, she was still young at that time. It rained when the snow melted in the spring, and many people died from the cold spring. The cities received refugees, and resettlement sites were built at the gates of the major cities. I heard from my father that the first emperor personally visited those displaced people.

Later, when the common people recovered from illness and left, the prestige of the late emperor rose again and again. The common people were treated very well, because what they asked for was simple, and food and clothing were enough. The emperor’s concern for the court and his efforts would make them grateful. .

"But it's coming soon. Huocheng is rebuilding, sending troops there, and now a lot of people have evacuated." Mrs. Liu also heard from her husband that all places are hurrying to rebuild, and the court allocated a lot of money to go down.

"How can you evacuate the sick people? They will die of illness before halfway through, and it is not appropriate to house them all outside the city." Evacuate the healthy and sick people.

Maybe the emperor doesn't understand the suffering of the people, but the more Lin Qingran thinks about it, the more she feels overwhelmed, so she never went outside the city to see it, but just prepared things and sent them over one by one

At the end of February, most of the people outside the city were evacuated, and the rest were those who were seriously ill at that time. They were moved to within ten miles, and the original people within ten miles had already returned.

This heavy snowfall claimed the lives of many people. The disaster in Huocheng was so severe that the imperial court had to allocate a lot of money. Shao Ziyu and the others were also busy for more than a month, and many officials became tired and sick.

In mid-March, all the temporary resettlement sites outside the city were demolished. At this time, it was supposed to be a time to appease the common people and officials by rewarding meritorious deeds. However, someone from the emperor's side referred to Prince Bei's memorandum, saying that he made the decision without authorization and resettled people. It was within ten miles that the city also had a cold syndrome.
(End of this chapter)