Chapter 168: Disaster

Day 2.

In the Mandarin Palace, it was just like before.

The ministers have arrived.

A little less than the last minister.

However, there was one special person involved.

But it was an old eunuch with gray hair. Zhu Qizhen didn't know before that there was still this big man in the palace. He asked Ruan An about his plan in advance, and Ruan An's plan could not satisfy Zhu Qizhen.

Ruan An promoted this old eunuch who had already retired in Renshou Palace.

As soon as Zhu Qizhen inquired, he learned that this Mu Jing was a first-class water control minister, although Ruan An had also repaired the river, but compared with Mu Jing, his ability in this area was too much worse.

The entire North Canal was repaired by Mu Jing. Mu Jing has visited almost every gate of the canal and is very familiar with the water conditions in various places. It's the old minister who controls the water.

Not only that, Mu Jing's quality is also quite good.

During the Yongle period, Mu Jing followed Emperor Taizong's Northern Expedition, but it was deep in the north of the desert, and there was no shadow of thieves for more than a month, and there were some people below who were panicked.

It's just that Emperor Taizong is still unwilling and has no success.

The ministers admonished and were sent one after another.

And Mu Jing still admonished, repeatedly.

Emperor Taizong was furious and said, "Do you want to be opposed? ”

Mu Jing said: "It's like this, Your Majesty is obsessed, and I don't know who will do the opposite." ”

Emperor Taizong ordered Mu Jing to be beheaded, and Mu Jing was dragged left and right, while Mu Jing's color remained unchanged.

Seeing this, Emperor Taizong ordered Mu Jing to be spared, and said, "There are such people in the palace, isn't it sincere and beneficial?" ”

Immediately ordered to return to the army.

But Mu Jing is good at everything, but it's not good at all.

It's the old man who is dying, and the hero is in the twilight.

Zhu Qizhen specially gave a seat, and treated Mu Jing like a minister.

Zhu Qizhen saw that everyone had arrived, and said to Qian: "Mr. Yu, let's talk about the disaster in Shuntianfu first?" ”

Yu Qian said: "Yes." ”

Then Yu Qian talked eloquently and said: "Your Majesty has settled 100,000 people with the plan of work for relief, and the Beijing city wall, city tower, three major halls, and other projects. ”

"But most of these projects are near Beijing, and the Lugou River floods are in Dong'an, Yongqing, Gu'an, and Wuqing counties. Except for the county seat, most of them were flooded. ”

"Most of the victims of the Beijing migrant workers are from the vicinity of Gyeonggi."

"In the opinion of the ministers, the victims near Beijing are only damaged in their property, but the people of these four counties are between life and death."

Zhu Qizhen listened to this phenomenon.

Zhu Qizhen also learned later.

The first is that the disaster in Beijing is not serious.

At least compared with the natural disasters in other places in this era, the natural disasters in Beijing can be said to be very ordinary. After all, other places were affected by disasters, and there would never be an emperor's decree, so the minister immediately inspected, and he didn't know how many troops there were

team, let's do disaster relief together.

Many people have the impression that countless people are defending the embankment. This is not true in this day and age.

It's not that the military won't be involved in disaster relief.

As early as the Song Dynasty, there was an army dedicated to water control.

But if you think about it, an army with a shortage of almost one-third of the population can't fight a war, so can it control the water?

There is a Beijing camp in the Beijing Division, which is where the elite of the Ming Dynasty is, even if it declines, it is still the force of the imperial court to rely on after it survives to Zhengde.

They don't drop the chain so easily.

The natural disaster in Beijing is not serious, and the number of people affected by the disaster is not large, but the downstream disaster is serious, and what is more serious is the lack of organizational strength of the imperial court, and it wants to organize these victims to go to Beijing for hundreds of miles.

It's not an easy thing to do.

There are even some ministers who disagree on this matter.

Without him, Beijing is the face of the imperial court, a large number of victims gathered in Beijing, the face of the imperial court is not good-looking, not to mention, all the envoys are in Beijing.

The envoys of Luchuan, the envoys of the Tile Thorn, and the envoys of Uliangha.

But it's all there.

The envoy of the tile spur is okay, and now the tile spur is also first, and he is sorting out the mess left by his father Tuohuan, even if he marries his sister to Tuo Buhua, he is at odds with him.

The most direct manifestation is that Tokhtarbuhua alone paid a tribute of 3,000 horses to the imperial court.

Of course, according to the principle of thick and thin, the imperial court gave back a lot of silk, grain, and iron tools at a high price.

This matter was decided when Yang Rong was there.

Although it is a little pedantic, the meaning of sowing discord is too obvious.

The Luchuan envoys have been running in Beijing, begging for peace with the imperial court. It's just that the Luchuan envoys brought a lot of gold and silver, but no one in the court dared to accept Luchuan's silver.

Even when the imperial army approached Yunnan, the Luchuan envoys gave up.

On top of the tribute, how many things did he bring, Zhu Qizhen increased the weight according to the rules of Taizu, took out the inner library and tripled the return gift, and said to the civil officials: "The court must not be rude to a small state." ”

But he sent a decree to Meng Ying, asked Meng Ying to show the gift list, and said: "This is the reward given by the imperial court to the soldiers, break the Luchuan, get it from the Luchuan, reward the soldiers, and the court will not take a cent." ”

The envoy of Uliangha was red-eyed and asked for a reward from the court.

Speaking of which, Uliangha still has the title of Daming on his head, the so-called Duoyan Sanwei, but now Uliangha's attitude is unclear. Nature can't give.

Even the monolithic fort has already started fighting, and the envoys of Uliangha are still chattering in Beijing.

As for North Korea, Annan's envoys are there.

During the orthodox period, there were still some Yongle relics, and during the Yongle period, there were countless foreign envoys in Beijing, and at the most, there were more than 70 countries.

For all these reasons, the effect of cash-for-work in Beijing is not good.

But in the lower reaches of the Lugou River, the imperial court did not have so many projects to do.

Zhu Qizhen asked: "How many victims do you estimate there are in the four counties?" ”

Yu Qian said: "The minister can only guarantee that there are more than 37,000 people in the territory of Shuntian Mansion, but how many other prefectures and counties in Zhili are not known to the minister." ”

Zhu Qizhen glanced at Yang Shiqi.

Yang Shiqi coughed twice and said: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that the Lugou River threatens the safety of the imperial court, so he naturally has to repair it well, especially in the first year of Xuande, the fifth year of Xuande, and there have been major repairs in these two years. How to fix it, the people below are very clear, so it is okay to work for relief. ”

"But the prefectures and counties in the south are not easy to build on their own."

"The minister thinks it's better to open a warehouse and release grain for relief, and the minister has transferred a batch of grain and grass from Shandong, which is enough to help the two prefectures of Hejian and Baoding."

Zhu Qizhen also knows a lot of things.

Engineering construction has always been the hardest hit area of corruption. It doesn't make a difference whether it's ancient or modern.

Yang Shiqi understands this even more.

Therefore, he supported the Lugou Bridge project, but opposed cash-for-work in other places.

It's the Lugou Bridge River, and it's not a new thing. Roughly how much is needed, Yang Shiqi actually has a number in his heart. Not to mention, Yu Qian is the person in charge of this project.

Although he hasn't said it yet, Yang Shiqi can guess it with his toes.

Yang Shiqi was too humble. But others may not be able to believe it.

Not to mention, there is no planning between them, and the livelihood of the victims is tied to it, so if you do it well, you can naturally count it in one fell swoop. But Yang Shiqi has to do a good job, what if he can't do it well?

In the same way, some people can repair the Yellow River once, and it can be used for a hundred years, but some people can cultivate it: "Mo Dao Shiren has one eye and provokes the Yellow River to rebel in the world." ”

There's too much in this.

Yang Shiqi is old and somewhat conservative.

There are some things that he would rather spend a little more money on than think about what he can count in one fell swoop. Facts have also proved that the more varied things are, the more technical they are.

Yang Shiqi expressed doubts about whether the Ming bureaucrats had this kind of organizational ability.

Zhu Qizhen said: "What Yang Shoufu said is extremely true. I won't mention this matter for the time being. Let's talk about Lugou River first, Mr. also said that in the first year of Xuande, Xuande was overhauled in five years, and it was also repaired in the first year of orthodoxy. ”

"Each time, tens of thousands of laborers are used, and thousands of laborers are used at least, and it is almost repaired every year, but even so, every three or five times, the Lugou River has to burst its embankment once or twice."

"Since I ascended the throne, once in the first year, again this year, after this overhaul, how many years can it last? The imperial court is a mountain of gold and silver, and it can't be squandered. And the people will suffer like this many times. ”

"So today, do you want to make this one thing clear? How to repair the Lugou River, once and for all, never break the embankment again. ”

Zhu Qizhen's words were loud, but this question was not easy to answer.