The Xiaoice River era that Zhu Youxiao had been worried about had finally arrived, and since the spring of the eighth year of the Apocalypse, God had not rained, and serious drought disasters had occurred, and the scope of drought was more extensive than in history, and the entire area north of the Yangtze River was in the scope of drought.

Although Zhu Youxiao has long asked all localities to prepare for disaster prevention, officials and ordinary people who have been living for several years still take this matter to heart. According to Zhu Youxiao's plan, each family must prepare at least one year's surplus grain, which the local government has done, but the ordinary people are not prepared, although they know to store grain, but there has been a large amount of grain harvest over the years, and the life is very comfortable, and gradually forget the life of lack of food and clothing, after all, the new crop planting from the second year of the apocalypse has allowed the people to have surplus grain, and there is more food every year, and everyone has begun to get used to it.

Although there was no rain in the spring of the eighth year of the Apocalypse, through the construction of water conservancy projects in the past few years, coupled with the government's call for everyone to work together to fight drought, a large number of wells were dug and waterwheels were generally promoted, and most of the harvest was saved, especially the winter wheat harvest was still good. This has once again given the common people the illusion that they can get a good harvest by watering their fields even if it doesn't rain for a year.

But God seems to be to compete with the people, there is no rain in the spring, and in the rainy season in June, it should rain, but unfortunately God still does not rain, the hot sun makes the entire northern region enter a long period of hot weather, the temperature is high and scary, it is really cloudless, and you can only see the scorching sun every day.

The severe drought began to make the people a little panicked, and through drought relief, people carried oxen, cars carried by hand, and almost all the autumn crops that had been planted with great difficulty died of drought. In the plains, the situation is a little better, at least you can dig wells to get water, the river water does not need to be considered, almost all the small rivers are dry, but the people in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and other mountainous areas can be miserable, they even have difficulty drinking water, a large number of places are seriously short of water, and even for the problem of water source there are villagers fighting, drought panic began to spread throughout the northern region.

The first panic occurred in the large planters and breeders in Shaanxi, whose crops were out of harvest, and a large number of cattle and sheep lacked drinking water and had to be slaughtered, causing great losses. This is a densely populated area with a large population, but it is also the area where the drought has been the most severe in the entire Ming Dynasty. Although Zhu Youxiao took measures to relocate people, so that the population here has decreased a lot, but the rich life has made the population increase very fast, this is a common phenomenon, this kind of thing is the norm in all parts of the country, so the drought situation here is particularly prominent, so that the government began to have a headache, they encountered a serious crisis.

Zhu Youxiao in Beijing also began to sit still, although the current people will not rebel because of the lack of water, this is not a matter of the government and the emperor, this is a natural disaster. But the government is doing things for the people, and the government should be responsible for the life and death of the people! So Zhu Youxiao asked the Ming cabinet to make a disaster relief plan and think of solving the practical problems of the people.

These officials in the cabinet can come up with a good way, even Xu Guangqi, Sun Chengzong and other hard-working officials have not gone through this kind of thing, if you want to say that the people have no food, then you can mobilize food from all over the country, but the problem of water is really difficult to solve, you can't always carry water from all over the country, especially in the mountains, the water carried by people may not be enough to drink for yourself, let alone let others drink water, this is really difficult for these officials, and Zhu Youxiao has to come up with his own ideas.

Zhu Youxiao resolutely took measures based on his own historical experience, some of these measures were mandatory, some were decided on the basis of the people's own hospitals, and the most important thing was that the government should have something to do and have the ability to take practical actions for the people.

The first is to let the large farmers give up their cattle and sheep, and the government can give a certain amount of compensation, let them count the losses themselves, and the government will review them, that is, they can get compensation from the government now, or they can get interest-free loans from the government bank when they re-breed cattle and sheep after the drought, so as to avoid livestock and the population competing for water sources, at least give priority to ensuring the drinking water of the population, and other things must be postponed.

The second and second articles are to temporarily relocate to places where there is a serious shortage of water and where the road conditions are not good, so that they can temporarily move to places with better road conditions, such as rivers and plains, so as to facilitate the government's assistance, and the government will be responsible for their living expenses, at least to ensure that they have three meals a day and drinking water, and whether to relocate or not is up to them, and they will not be forced to relocate.

The third is to drill wells, so that the geologists and geographers of the Daming Academy of Sciences have an opportunity to refer to and practice on the spot, and at the same time investigate local resources. At present, the groundwater resources are still relatively sufficient, limited to people's perception of nature, or just insufficient, but they are digging relatively shallow earth wells. Zhu Youxiao ordered the engineering personnel of the Academy of Sciences to go to the field to investigate, find a suitable water source according to the topography and landform, use the power of machinery, dig a relatively deep well, and then use mechanical methods to pump it out, so as to completely solve the problem of drinking water in remote places.

It should be said that Zhu Youxiao's measures have achieved good results, the situation in various places has begun to improve, the government and the people have worked together to fight drought, so that the people have seen hope, the people are very content, including those large farmers, they are very cooperative with the government's actions, after learning about the government's policies, they have taken active action, most of the families have signed an agreement to obtain preferential loans in the future, and even some have refused the government's preferential treatment, everyone has difficulties in the face of natural disasters, since the government has taken rescue measures, Then you should also think about the country. It should be said that the people of this era are very simple, and they have felt that the government is serving them through the good days of the past few years, and they can understand and understand each other, especially the free compulsory education, so that the people's consciousness has been greatly improved, and they know how to tide over difficulties together and understand each other.

The problem of the people in the inconvenient places where the migration road is inconvenient has also been carried out very smoothly, and the students trained by Zhu Youxiao's Daming Officials College are now all over the government yamen, and they are models for the common people both in terms of knowledge and morality, and through several years of work, coupled with a strict assessment system, they have broken away from the original bureaucratic habits, and their personal abilities are very good, which also makes Zhu Youxiao's relocation measures very smooth and avoids turmoil.

The government provided simple housing, and some military tents, at least no other changes will occur before the arrival of winter, as for the arrival of winter, it is estimated that the engineers of the well drilling team have almost solved the problem, as for individual places, the common people can stay and stay according to their own wishes.

Thousands of engineers took a large number of workers into the mountainous areas, using the knowledge they had learned, plus some old scientists' suggestions, according to the topography and topography, using the steam engine as a power in the place suitable for drilling wells, and drilled many deep wells. For example, if you find the location of the original spring, or if you find a place where moist water and plants are abundant, etc. There is an additional harvest, that is, in the process of investigation and drilling, the engineers found a lot of ore that they had not seen before, through comparison, testing, and testing, they gained a lot of knowledge, and successfully completed the task before the arrival of winter.

Just when everyone was about to breathe a sigh of relief, Zhu Youxiao issued another task, taking advantage of the fact that the drought was now serious and agricultural work could not be carried out, he quickly organized the common people in various localities to carry out the work of building water conservancy projects, digging reservoirs in mountainous areas, and digging ditches in plain areas, with the aim of building water conservancy projects for farmland that can prevent drought and flood.

Most people do not understand Zhu Youxiao's actions, including officials, but Zhu Youxiao knows that the climate of this Xiaoice River is like an epileptic patient, not only drought, but also floods, and each disaster will last for a long time, causing very serious damage.