In the Forbidden City, the Taihe Palace, Emperor Zhu Youzhen held Gao Keng, Yang Hongzhang and the six magistrates of Tianjin for a long time. On the one hand, he was happy that Yang Hongzhang was able to control the epidemic in such a short period of time, he did not look at the wrong person, and Yang Hongzhang did not live up to his trust.

But he couldn't be happy, and asked himself, when he received Yang Hongzhang's recital, he didn't pay much attention to it, or he didn't expect it to be really useful at all. In the face of the courtiers' impeachment of Yang Hongzhang, he was also indifferent. This negative attitude has led to the loss of countless lives that could have survived the epidemic safely, and this feeling is difficult for anyone to understand. As an ambitious emperor, he was powerless when the Qing army invaded and plundered Gyeonggi and Zhili, and now that the plague is coming, he is still powerless, and the saddest thing is that he obviously has a capable courtier who helped him think of a way, but he ignored it.

And the Manchu civil and military forces below also fell silent. Many of these people were in the vanguard of the impeachment of Yang Hongzhang, and they were in high spirits when they impeached Yang Hongzhang, but they were dejected after reading the recital. No language pales in comparison to the thousands of human lives. Tianjin is only 300 miles away from the capital, and the fast horse can arrive in one day, not to mention that Jinyiwei has manpower in various places, and I think that there will soon be more concerts to confirm the concerts of Gao Keng and Yang Hongzhang and others. So what happened in Tianjin should be credible, and the results are remarkable.

It's just that what Yang Hongzhang did was indeed too shocking. The mere cremation of all the remains was unacceptable to most of the people present. Therefore, most people are reluctant to admit Yang Hongzhang's achievements, and even more reluctant to promote the so-called prevention and control regulations.

But people's achievements are there, the so-called no comparison, no harm, the entire Tianjin Province due to the number of people infected with the plague death of only more than 4,000 people, now the epidemic has been basically controlled, while the neighboring Baoding is basically killed and injured, and it continues to spread outward, Shanxi, Shandong, Henan have been affected one after another. If Yang Hongzhang's method is adopted, at least there will be no spread to other provinces. There are tens of thousands of lives that can be saved, and such a choice is really difficult.

Zhu Youzhen put down the chapter, his eyes wandered among the ministers, and those who were seen by the emperor lowered their heads, no one spoke, they didn't want to speak, and they didn't know how to say it.

Zhu Youzhen now regrets a little, how much he trusted Yang Hongzhang at the beginning, and he was shaken just a few days after leaving, and it was these so-called scholars who are now standing in the hall who are noisy in their ears all day long that they chose to put Yang Hongzhang's epidemic prevention regulations on the shelf. Those who died were the people of the Ming Dynasty, and the looting and massacre of the Qing army can still be said to be excusable, so inaction now is a man-made disaster. If the common people are all killed by the plague, what does he rely on to prosper the Ming Dynasty! Capable ministers like Yang Hongzhang are constantly squeezed out by the ministers and ignored by themselves, who else is willing to do their best for Daming?

Zhu Youzhen's eyes were finally fixed on Chen Xinjia, the squire of the military department: "Chen Aiqing, from now on, select and send people from Beijing to Tianjin to learn epidemic prevention and control, and at the same time transfer people from Tianjin to various places to guide the epidemic prevention work, and immediately send Yang Hongzhang's epidemic prevention regulations to various places with the chapters, and strictly order all places to implement them immediately!" ”

"Your Majesty's ......" Yang Sichang stopped talking, and it could be seen that the emperor had made up his mind. At this time, it is indeed a bit pale to mention any etiquette.

Sure enough, Zhu Youzhen pouted and didn't wait for the second person to second, Yang Sichang directly stood up and gave an order: "Yang Aiqing, all Aiqing, don't talk to me about etiquette, at least before there is no better way than Yang Hongzhang, we must strictly follow the epidemic prevention regulations he formulated, this matter is led by the Ministry of War, and the capital, Baoding, Hejian, Daimyo, and Dezhou prefectures implement militarized management, and Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong can ask the local army for help."

The Ministry of Households and the Ministry of Industry are responsible for collecting relief materials, including lime, firecrackers, masks, etc. The officials should include the response to the epidemic into the focus of the official evaluation, and those who do not act slowly must be removed immediately, and will never be hired, and those like Zhang Shiwen in Cangzhou can be directly decided! The actions of all ministries must be fast, they must be fast, and if they delay for one more day, more people will be infected, and those who dare to delay the prevention and control of the epidemic will be killed! ”

Hearing this, everyone gasped, obviously the emperor was also really angry this time, in fact, no matter who is in this position, it will be very sad, obviously there are good epidemic prevention regulations, but the Manchu Dynasty civil and military and the emperor have shelved it, resulting in the spread of the epidemic that could have been controlled, making people around Gyeonggi panic.

This is a man-made disaster, the responsible ministers have been thrown to the emperor, can the emperor not be angry? Therefore, many people also feel that they do not have the literati temperament that they used to fight for, and choose to be silent or acquiesce.

Seeing the reaction of the ministers below, Zhu Youzhen turned his gaze to Ni Yuanlu again: "Ni Aiqing, what Yang Hongzhang asked in the recital, the household department should hurry up and handle it, if you can't support the local government from the epidemic prevention materials, you can directly allocate disaster relief funds, and the same is true for Baoding." ”

The corners of Ni Yuanlu's mouth twitched, but he didn't dare to refute it, but he nodded yes, you must know that Yang Hongzhang, the bastard, actually opened his mouth, saying that in order to raise disaster relief materials, Tianjin Mansion has spent nearly 100,000 taels on buying firecrackers, lime and masks and other necessities and reserve food these days, and each of the six counties and one state has allocated 30,000 taels, adding up to almost 30,000 taels, in order to cope with the next epidemic, Tianjin is also preparing to distribute the materials for epidemic prevention and control to some villages where the population gathers, so I asked the imperial court to allocate 500,000 taels for disaster relief!

The emperor now feels ashamed of Yang Hongzhang, so he is allowed to play, but Ni Yuanlu doesn't dare to do things like this, Tianjin Mansion is much smaller than Baoding Mansion, and Zhili and Daimyo, Hejian and so on are all state capitals with a larger population than Tianjin. There is also an urgent need for money for the epidemic prevention in Beijing, and according to Yang Hongzhang's approach, I am afraid that the entire Zhili will not be able to get down without three million taels of silver.

Seeing Ni Yuanlu's embarrassed look, Zhu Youzhen didn't continue to ask, he just had an attitude, and he couldn't force Ni Yuanlu to a dead end. The treasury just had some money, and there was still a border army to rebuild, waiting to be spent.

Yang Sichang sighed quietly in the crowd, this time the monkey passed the test again, because of the effective prevention and control, the monkey was actually used as an example by the emperor to dispose of a matter of Zhizhou at will. However, the dignified Zhizhou Zhang Shiwen was driven out of the Zhizhou Yamen by Qiu Ba under Yang Hongzhang, and was even imprisoned in the home of a businessman with an infected patient, and the emperor did not give him justice, and was also defined as a typical example of inaction that could be decided.

Yang Hongzhang's luck seems to be too good, and even a catastrophic event like the plague can give him extra points. It seems that it will not be easy to completely bring him down. It's just that after this incident, Yang Hongzhang is afraid that he has gained a firm foothold in Tianjin, and has a certain prestige, and the training of the new army may really be able to make him famous, and when Sun Chengzong or others propose to let Yang Hongzhang go out of the town, the general army of the town is afraid that he will not be able to stop him no matter what.

Thinking of Sun Cheng's high morality, and then having such an arrogant aid as Yang Hongzhang outside, Yang Sichang couldn't help but sigh, it would have been great if he had tried his best to win over Yang Hongzhang instead of Wang Lenian.

Wang Lenian, standing in the crowd, is undoubtedly the most embarrassing, he is the same governor of Tianjin, if he is in Tianjin at the moment, then Yang Hongzhang's credit can be divided into half of him, Yang Hongzhang is the chief soldier of Tianjin, and he will also prepare to build an arsenal and a naval division, then it is very likely that he will become the prefect of Tianjin within a year. But he chose to escape the epidemic and stay in the capital, and became the vanguard of the impeachment of Yang Hongzhang. In fact, if there was no comparison between the epidemic in Tianjin and Baoding, Yang Hongzhang did a few things that would have made him lose his official position.

But there is no if, the fact is that Yang Hongzhang basically relied on strict implementation of epidemic prevention regulations to control the epidemic. Wang Lenian now needs to worry about his future.

Continue to go to Tianjin to follow Yang Hongzhang, Yang Hongzhang may ignore him, do a good job, have achievements, the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs and the emperor will not think that he has his credit, if he does not do well, he will definitely think that he is causing trouble to Yang Hongzhang, and he will follow Yang Hongzhang to take the blame.

What's more, Yang Hongzhang's arrogant subordinates may directly throw him into the quarantine area, if he doesn't go to Tianjin, then he must find another way to find another job. It's not a good time to do it. Wang Lenian's mind was racing, and then he saw him kneeling on the ground and crying loudly in the direction of the dragon chair: "Your Majesty, the minister Wang Lenian asked for war, and the minister missed the opportunity to fight side by side with General Yang because of trivial matters at home, and he is willing to go to Baoding to assist local officials in the prevention and control of the plague, and then return to Tianjin to take up his post after the epidemic is over." ”

As soon as the words fell, there was a sigh, and more people whispered, Wang Lenian's change came too suddenly, everyone was not mentally prepared, and they couldn't guess what he wanted to do?

Even Yang Sichang, Wang Lenian's big backstage, turned his head to look at Wang Lenian in surprise. Wang Lenian replied with a mysterious smile, Wang Lenian's greed for life and fear of death he had seen it, if it wasn't for Sun Chengzong, he wouldn't have protected this guy after Gao Yang was lost.

I just don't know if this guy is too stimulated, and he actually proposed to go to the hard-hit area, you must know that although the imperial court has decided to implement Yang Hongzhang's prevention and control regulations, but after all, the plague is no matter how high your official position is, and it is too risky to go to Baoding at this time. That could cost lives, and it wouldn't have to be so risky if it was only for the sake of political prospects. And shouldn't such a major matter be reported to himself in advance, let him make a decision, and then bring it up in the court?

However, seeing the confident smile on Wang Lenian's face, Yang Sichang felt that Wang Lenian, who was in his forties and had been in charge of the county for more than ten years, was definitely not impulsive, so what did he want to do in Baoding Yang Sichang basically thought of it. Yang Sichang shook his head but did not come forward to stop him, many things he disdained to do or could not bear or was inconvenient to do, people like Wang Lenian have the meaning of existence.

Zhu Youzhen was also stunned when he heard this, and then he was overjoyed, at this time, there are still people willing to go to the epidemic area, on the one hand, it shows that this person is responsible, and on the other hand, it also shows that this person has confidence in epidemic prevention and control. This kind of good thing, and Wang Lenian also went down in the name of the imperial court, representing the imperial court and representing the emperor to fight the first priority of the epidemic, which is also an encouragement to local officials and people. Of course, Zhu Youzhen had no reason to refuse, so he agreed on the spot.

So the backbone who originally questioned Yang Hongzhang's epidemic prevention regulations and impeached Yang Hongzhang for his misdeeds, Wang Lenian, the governor-elect of Tianjin Prefecture, turned into a messenger sent by the imperial court to Baoding Mansion to supervise the prevention and control of the epidemic in the complicated eyes of the Manchu Dynasty.