Prince of Chaos

Chapter 167: Zhong Huamin's Disaster Relief

Zhong Huamin and his party of seven rushed to the disaster-stricken area in Henan on light horses, while the food escorted by Zhu Changluo was still on the road day and night heading towards the disaster-stricken area.

At the same time, Emperor Wanli was deeply aware of the seriousness of the disaster area, and he also called on the ministers in Beijing and the inner palace concubines to donate money and materials to support the people in the disaster area.

During this call, the empress dowagers of the two palaces donated 3 taels of silver, the queen donated 8000 taels of silver, Concubine Gong also donated 5000 taels of silver with Zhu Changluo's support, and Concubine Zheng Gui, who lived in the deep palace for a long time. Shi also gritted his teeth and donated 5000 taels of silver, and other concubines also donated.

Emperor Wanli saw the support of the concubines in the harem, and they all donated their own money to fight the disaster. Emperor Wanli was very moved.Especially when he saw Zheng Guifei also took out 5000 taels of silver, he sighed in his heart: "Mengjing is still a kind and lovely person."

Among the ministers outside the palace, Shen Shixing also took the lead in donating his own salary. After the cabinet set an example, more or less officials in Beijing donated their meager salaries, expressing their willingness to overcome difficulties with His Majesty the Emperor.

However, how much silver can these salaries have?We all know that in the Ming Dynasty, the salaries of officials were the lowest in all dynasties. Therefore, Emperor Wanli was not interested in the money donated by Beijing officials. However, in order to set an example for the world and stabilize people's hearts, Emperor Wanli still issued an edict Encourage the patriotism of the officials in Beijing.

After having the money, Emperor Wanli allocated some silver from his own internal funds to the Ministry of Households, and the Ministry of Households uniformly dispatched these silvers to the disaster-stricken areas in Henan to help Zhonghuamin in disaster relief.

Although Zhong Huamin's rank was not high, but as an expatriate censor, he was entrusted with the imperial envoy's mandate. When he arrived in Henan, even the Henan chief envoy had to bow down to Zhong Huamin.At this time, Zhong Huamin naturally became the highest official in Henan, and also the commander-in-chief of disaster relief in Henan.

After Zhong Huamin arrived in Henan, he did not rush to gather the officials of Henan to sit together for a meeting to discuss. Instead, he took the six officials he brought with him, dressed in plain clothes, and went deep into the front line of the disaster area. Dining and sleeping in the open air, and undressed, he went deep into the front line to understand the sufferings faced by the people in the disaster area.

After seeing clearly the real situation in the disaster-stricken area in Henan, Zhong Huamin took an inventory of the food that could be mobilized at hand. With limited money and food, Zhong Huamin formulated emergency measures with the lowest consumption and the widest benefit.He is going to open a porridge factory, which can directly solve the problem of food and clothing for the victims in Henan and ensure their basic life safety.

The porridge factory set up by Zhong Huamin stipulates that porridge should be distributed twice a day, and each time each disaster victim is given about two spoonfuls of gruel to save lives.In order to prevent individual victims from repeatedly receiving porridge, Zhong Huamin also registered and made an identity tag for each disaster victim who came to receive porridge, stating their place of origin, name and specific porridge delivery point.

For the victims in the hard-hit areas, Zhong Huamin also requested that the porridge factory be set up for a long time to ensure that the victims can survive until the wheat is ripe; We started to send money for relief, hoping that they can return to their hometown as soon as possible and rebuild their homes.Regarding the site selection of the porridge factory, Zhong Huamin put forward the viewpoint of "it is better to move officials to serve the people than to work the people to serve the officials" according to the degree of disaster in each area and the distribution of victims, that is, it is better to make officials work harder and run more errands than It is necessary to reduce the fatigue of the victims as much as possible.

In the selection of the management personnel of the porridge factory, Zhonghuamin selected all the "rich and righteous people" selected from the villagers, that is, the squires and landlords who still have a little conscience and a little conscience.In order to stimulate their enthusiasm, Zhong Huamin also asked the state governments to solemnly issue letters of appointment to these porridge factory volunteers.This kind of operation also ensures the high standards for the selection of management personnel in the congee factory, and also strengthens their sense of honor and responsibility.

Zhong Huamin's series of porridge donations saved a large number of victims struggling on the verge of dying in the first place.

This series of operations was carried out under the eyes of the people Zhu Changluo sent to help Zhong Huamin. Zhu Changluo asked his people to unconditionally obey Zhong Huamin's management command, and at the same time record all the methods and strategies Zhong Huamin used to rescue and treat the victims in the disaster area in Henan, including Everything he said was recorded.

In this way, it is convenient to organize Zhong Huamin's disaster relief strategies into a book. If there is a disaster year in the future, the officials sent to provide disaster relief can also learn from it, and it can also prevent them from making random decisions and directing like headless chickens.

After preliminarily solving the survival problems of the victims, Zhong Huamin adjusted the direction of disaster relief to the distribution of money for relief in the disaster area.

Why do we have to distribute money but not food?This is because the disasters in the disaster areas are severe and mild, and the food that Zhong Huamin can mobilize is also effective. Therefore, for some areas where the disaster area is not serious, Zhong Huamin adopts the form of direct distribution of money, which can save the few in hand. It can also alleviate the economic recovery in areas that are not seriously affected by the disaster. Generally speaking, this is a rare act of good governance.

In addition, in addition to ordinary people in the disaster-stricken areas, there are also many scholars who are also affected by the disaster, but the thoughts of these people are more difficult to understand. If you go to the porridge factory to get porridge, you will be humiliated.So they would rather starve to death at home than go to the porridge factory.In the eyes of people hundreds of years later, these actions are a very ridiculous theory, but under the social background at that time, these actions were regarded by scholars as "integrity" related to life and death!
Therefore, the standards of new morality cannot be used to judge old morality.Of course, the ignorance and dross in the old morality cannot contaminate the new morality.

Zhong Huamin is also a scholar, but he is a pragmatist, so he understands the thinking of these nerds very well.Therefore, Zhong Huamin asked the local government officials, or himself, to come to the door and send relief money.And it must be emphasized that this is a reward from the current emperor and crown prince.

These scholars who were influenced by the thought of loyalty and filial piety when they were young were all moved to tears when they heard that it was a reward from the emperor and the crown prince, and then they accepted the money with peace of mind.

It can be seen that, for different types of victims, the relief methods will also change accordingly. We cannot blindly carry out a one-size-fits-all disaster relief model, and the key is to learn to be flexible.

Zhong Huamin is in this area, his is almost perfect.

And at this moment, Liu Wenzhen, who had received Zhu Changluo's letter, finally rushed over from Qizhou, Hubei (now Qizhou Town, Qichun County, Hubei Province).

Before that, Liu Wenzhen stayed in Li Shizhen's hometown to learn medical skills from Li Shizhen after she left the Imperial Hospital. It is a pity that Li Shizhen is getting older and has a long life. Last year, a generation of medicine sage Li Shizhen died in his hometown. .Therefore, Liu Wenzhen took the rites of his disciples as Li Shizhen's filial piety, and studied Li Shizhen's masterpiece "Compendium of Materia Medica"!
After he received a letter from Zhu Changluo, he saw how serious the disaster area in Henan was described by Zhu Changluo in the letter, and he was also restless in Qizhou, so he bid farewell to Li Shizhen's family members, and at the same time knelt down and prayed in front of Li Shizhen's tomb, State the reason and purpose of your visit.

When Li Shizhen's family members and disciples heard Liu Wenzhen's reasons, they were all moved. In the end, together with Liu Wenzhen, there were more than a dozen Li Shizhen's disciples and grandchildren in the disaster-stricken area of ​​Henan, and the most famous one was Li Shizhen's personal disciple Pang Lumen. .

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(End of this chapter)