Although Yang had been preparing for the drought for a long time, he had somewhat underestimated the severity of the situation.

From April to early June, for nearly two months, there was almost no rain in the entire Jianghuai and Zhejiang prefectures, and the situation in Jiangxi and other places was slightly better, but the drought also lasted for more than a month.

The absence of rainfall for a long time has led to the almost drying up of rivers everywhere, and the water flow of large rivers such as the Qiantang River has also dropped a lot, which has brought great difficulties to agricultural irrigation.

With the exception of a few areas where agricultural cultivation has survived due to the availability of local water conservancy facilities, almost all crops grown in other areas have perished.

What's more, although there was some rain in various places at the beginning of June, by the end of June, the rain stopped again, followed by a drought that lasted for more than 20 days.

Such a serious drought immediately attracted the great attention of Yang Wu and others, and Luo Zhixiang, Yang Xin, Xu Shan and other six ministers were entrusted by Yang Wu to inspect the drought situation in various places.

Fortunately, in the past few years, the harvest in various places has been good, and after Yang Wu vigorously rectified the situation, the financial taxes have become relatively reasonable, and the burden on the people is relatively light, so every household can still support it by relying on the surplus grain of previous years.

However, if the drought continues, there will inevitably be some families with weak foundations who will not be able to support it and will eventually become victims.

Therefore, on the one hand, Yang Wu ordered that the people in the affected localities be exempted from agricultural taxes this year, and on the other hand, he ordered that if there were disaster victims in various places, they must be arranged to receive them on the spot, and they should not be rushed to other places.

Yang Wu knows that in many times in history, after the emergence of disaster victims, the local government often chose to close the city gates, drive the victims to other places, or leave them to fend for themselves in order not to affect their own political performance.

But in this way, those victims will not be able to survive, and if someone takes the opportunity to provoke them, I am afraid that there will immediately be a situation of rebellion everywhere.

Yang Wu naturally didn't want such a situation to happen, so he would rather lose some money and food in various places to ensure stability.

In mid-May, the Chizhou area began to pour into the city one after another because of the lack of harvest, but fortunately, the Chizhou Assassin Chen responded effectively, he ordered the opening of warehouses to help the victims, and sent people to maintain order to prevent people from taking advantage of the opportunity to make trouble.

Because Chief Chen himself has an excellent reputation in the local area, and with him in his presence, the mood of the local victims is very stable, and there is no sign of rebellion.

After Chizhou, a large number of victims also appeared in Xuanzhou, Shezhou and other places, causing great pressure on the local people, and the government in those areas was worried that the victims would take the opportunity to rebel and seize the prefecture and county, so they only dared to close the city gate and distribute some rations at the city gate every day to maintain the survival of the victims.

In early June, Yang Wu ordered the construction of a series of farmland and water conservancy facilities in Jianghuai, Liangzhejiang and other places, as well as a gallop road connecting Muzhou, Wuzhou, Chuzhou, Wenzhou and other places, in order to strengthen the imperial court's control over those relatively remote areas.

In order to complete such a large project, it is natural that a large number of migrant workers must be recruited, and today's drought just provides a large number of laborers.

Of course, in order to ensure stability as much as possible, so that there will be no overwork of the affected people, so that they are forced to cause chaos, Yang Wu personally set the employment standards in the construction process of these projects, including the daily labor hours and the amount of food provided to them, to ensure that these migrant workers not only have enough to eat, but also will not run out of strength to work, and even have a certain amount of surplus food to supply their elderly and children, so that people will not starve to death.

In addition, in order to ensure the safety of migrant workers as much as possible, Yang Wu also stipulated that migrant workers should not be forced to work during the hottest hours every day, so as to avoid widespread heat stroke.

In order to prevent some people from secretly attacking and greedy for money and food, Yang Wu sent a large number of personnel to various places to conduct supervision, and once any signs of corruption were found, once confirmed, no matter how much corruption was, they would all be punished with capital punishment.

Under his strong means of suppression, these projects were soon launched in various places, and those who had already run out of food for a long time went to the engineering team to sign up after receiving the news, and those who still had surplus food at home also joined in this large-scale construction.

After all, no one is sure how long such a large-scale drought will last, and the crops in the field have long been gone.

By early July, the situation had eased in many areas and rainfall had returned to normal levels.

The light and other conditions in Jianghuai, Liangzhejiang and other places are relatively good, and two-crop rice planting can be carried out; Although it is a little late at this time, it is still barely possible to plant a round of late rice, and if the wind is smooth in the future, there may be some harvest by the end of the year.

So for these areas, the engineering teams have stopped for a while, so that the victims can go home and plant crops; As for the progress of the engineering team, even if the speed is slow, Yang Wu will not care, as long as the situation can be stable.

Generally speaking, the drought will inevitably be accompanied by a large number of people starving to death, but this time the state of Wu responded effectively, and finally successfully survived the drought and ensured the stability of the situation.

Of course, it was inevitable that some people would die of starvation in various places, but the situation was not serious and there was no large-scale unrest.

However, as a price, the granary that Wu had worked hard to accumulate in the past year was quickly consumed, and now is not yet the time to completely relax, although many areas have successfully planted a round of rice, but it will be very late until the harvest.

In areas where rice has not been planted, it is even more likely that the harvest will not be harvested until next year, during which time the victims will have to rely on handouts or join engineering teams to work in exchange for food.

This is also a huge challenge to Wu's grain reserves.

The only good news is that this year's harvest in Jingxiang and Hunan has not been affected, especially in the vicinity of Tanzhou, there has been a bumper harvest this year, which has greatly alleviated the situation of grain shortage in the whole country.

In addition, a normal drought is often followed by a large-scale locust plague and a plague, and this drought is no different.

However, unlike in the past, this time because there was no mass starvation, most of the animals who really starved to death were those animals, which greatly reduced the possibility of a plague outbreak.

Although there were plagues in a small area in some areas, because Yang Wu had prepared in advance, the doctors sent to various places quickly took measures to isolate those who were sick, so that the plague that had just shown signs of outbreak quickly subsided.

However, compared to the plague, which was quickly quelled, the locust plague was much more serious.

As the saying goes, locusts will come after a long drought, and the locust plague is mainly concentrated in the Jianghuai region, and Chuzhou, Haozhou, Luzhou, and other places have been affected.

Yang Wu immediately ordered all localities to catch locusts to alleviate the disaster, and sent special personnel to various places to inspect the local government to catch locusts.

At first, this order was resisted by many officials and citizens, because people in this era often thought that locust plagues would only be punished if they offended the heavens.

Therefore, the people only knew how to set up sacrifices and worship, but they did not dare to hunt and kill the locusts, and let the locusts chew and eat the seedlings.

Wang Yingquan of the Imperial History said: "Locusts are natural disasters, and they cannot be eliminated by manpower." Besides, there are too many insects, which hurts the heavens and the peace. ”

In addition, Liu Yun, the assassin of Taizhou, still had objections to the extermination of locusts, and he wrote to Yang Wu: "Only by cultivating virtue can natural disasters be eliminated, and the failure of the former Zhao Liu Cong to eliminate locusts will cause greater harm, and this lesson has to be learned." If we exterminate locusts now, if we offend the heavens, it will inevitably lead to an even greater locust plague. ”

Therefore, this person actually refused to exterminate locusts in Taizhou, and wrote a letter to dissuade the surrounding Chuzhou and other places from assassinating the locusts.

At the instigation of this person, the assassins in some places couldn't help but hesitate.

After reading Wang Yingquan's book, Yang Wu was furious, denounced him for being pedantic, and declared: "Locusts can be exterminated, if they are allowed to become a disaster, the food will be eaten up, and what will the people do then?" Exterminate locusts and save people, if a disaster falls from the sky, there is a single person to bear it. ”

Yang Wu, who was angry in his heart, ordered the removal of Wang Yingquan and Liu Yun from their official positions on the spot, and ordered them to go home; At the same time, many of the people who were implicated by the two of them who had previously spoken out openly and secretly against the extermination of locusts were either dismissed from their posts and returned home, or were dismissed from office.

Then, for those who were still hesitating before, Yang Wu immediately sent someone to apply for it.

In the end, Yang Wu also ordered that if there was a locust plague in the state of Wu in later generations, the monarch of the current dynasty must order it to be hunted and killed at the first time, and if anyone spoke out to obstruct it, they would all be dismissed from office.

Under his strong orders, the local governments finally took action to prevent the officials and citizens from catching locusts.

By September, the drought situation in various places was basically over, and the locust plague had been contained, and the remaining locusts were basically difficult to cause major damage.

So far, this disaster, which has lasted for more than half a year, has basically been passed safely, and there has been no turmoil in the whole country of Wu except for consuming a large amount of food, which can be regarded as a great luck in misfortune.

Of course, although the disaster has basically survived safely, the construction of water conservancy projects in various places has not stopped.

According to Yang Wu's plan, if there is no accident in the next few years, Wu will not take large-scale military action, and the main energy will be used for the construction of internal affairs, and the construction of farmland and water conservancy and roads is the key project of this round of construction.

After surviving the drought safely, Yang Wu's attention was once again focused on Xuzhou.

Although Zhu Youzhen has not yet sent someone to replace the current Xuzhou Wuning Festival envoy Wang Yin, Yang Wu believes that it will only be a matter of time.

Since Zhu Youzhen still hasn't taken action, Yang Wu has no choice but to use some means in secret.