In late May of the sixth year of Chongzhen, when Song Yingsheng was still in his study to deal with business, a strong wind suddenly blew outside, and he looked up and glanced at the table clock in the room, which was only eight o'clock in the evening.

Song Yingsheng immediately got up and ordered the servants who were waiting outside, asking them to check whether the doors and windows of the entire office were closed, and then sat down and corrected the official documents again.

However, within a quarter of an hour, the strong wind outside the house not only did not gradually stop as the rain fell, but intensified. Song Yingsheng put down the official document, walked to the window and looked at the dark courtyard outside, and finally began to worry a little.

Jiangnan has always been the most economically and culturally developed place in China, but it has also been plagued by disasters in the past few decades. For example, last year, more than 10 counties in the Jiangnan region were affected by the drought, and almost all of Songjiang Prefecture was affected. Although the water conservancy projects of the previous years were able to maintain daily drinking water for people and livestock and the irrigation of some fields, the depletion of the river water caused the first time that Songjiang Prefecture, which has many rivers, and most of the rivers could not be navigated.

If it weren't for the opening of the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, which kept the transportation between Shanghai and Nanjing and Suzhou smooth, the trade of Shanghai Port was not affected much, and the largest income of Songjiang Prefecture was ensured, most of the people in Songjiang who were affected by the drought were not lost, and by the way, Shanghai also gained a lot of foreign labor, it is difficult to say what kind of impact last year's drought would have on the people in these areas.

Of course, although last year's drought caused damage to the Jiangnan region, the benefits undoubtedly outweighed the disadvantages for Shanghai. In addition to the drought, Shanghai has gained a large amount of cheap labor for the construction of new urban areas. It also caused the conservative gentry and common people in Jiangnan to begin to change their attitudes towards railway construction and foreign trade.

There has been a lot of controversy during the construction of the Shanghai-Nanjing railway, with some people feeling that the construction of the railway has destroyed the local feng shui, and others resenting the fact that the railway has taken up their own land. However, during last year's drought, the railway provided additional income to the residents of the area along the line, maintaining their livelihood in the year of famine, and the praise of the railway and foreign trade has suddenly become the latest perception of the people of Jiangnan.

Rice shipments from Thailand and Cambodia have stabilized prices in Songjiang Province, with the highest price of rice not exceeding 1.2 yuan per metric stone last year, which has also successfully broken the resistance of local rice traders to Siamese rice.

However, even though the drought brought a lot of benefits to Shanghai, Song Yingsheng was not grateful to God for this. He knew very well that far away from Shanghai and the railway, those affected by the disaster were still suffering from the various hardships brought about by the year of famine, otherwise there would not be so many beggars and street children on the streets of Shanghai.

Tonight's storm made him feel very uneasy, after all, most of those who had fled from other places were now living in low grass huts along the river. If the wind and rain are too strong, he is worried that there will be a large-scale human casualty incident. Hearing the sound of tree branches in the yard being blown to the ground by the strong wind, Song Yingsheng finally couldn't stand still.

He hurried out of the room, summoned the chief and ordered: "Call all the chiefs of the town hall to the meeting room, and prepare ponchos, rain boots, and lanterns..."

Although Chongzhen has been promoting a comprehensive reform of the official system since he ascended the throne, trying to separate the office time and private life of officials in order to establish a more professional bureaucratic system. However, this reform did not happen overnight, and even in a new urban unit like Shanghai, the city's political center, the city hall, was separated from two separate units: office space and official dormitories.

However, these officials' dormitories were also built according to the old official habits, and they were only separated from the city hall by a wall. Therefore, after Song Yingsheng gave an order, the heads of various departments of the city hall who lived next door hurriedly ran over.

Due to the rapid development of kerosene and kerosene lamps, the bustling city of Shanghai has greatly delayed the time to go to bed at night. Except for a few officials who went out, most of the officials did not sleep at this time, so they were able to come to the meeting very quickly, but most of them felt inexplicable and didn't know what Song Yingsheng called them to do on such a stormy night.

But after they listened to Song Yingsheng's order and listened to the whistling sound of the storm outside, all the officials couldn't help but start looking for excuses, wanting Song Yingsheng to dispel such a ridiculous order.

The outspoken official said directly: "My lord, it is windy and rainy outside, and it is difficult to see the road. Tell us to go and inspect the four places and transfer the people in those straw huts out, the lower officials are worried that the people have not been transferred out yet, and we should fall into the river to feed the king..."

The more tactful officials persuaded him: "My lord, the county town of Shanghai is fine, at most a few thousand beggars and homeless people, and the City God Temple and other temples in the city are barely enough to resettle after being requisitioned."

But outside the county, there are now more than 50,000 permanent residents, nearly half of whom live in straw huts, and even if we move them out, there will be no place to settle them. Wouldn't it be possible to let them rain in the open air? Xia Guan thought it was better to slow down and wait until dawn to make plans..."

"Smack." Song Yingsheng slapped the conference table in front of him, he ignored the reddened palm he patted, lowered his face and said to a cadre: "This official called you over, not to discuss with you whether to relocate people, this official is ordering you to move the people from those dangerous areas tonight."

Who said that there is no place to resettle, the warehouse area under construction, the gardens of large households, schools, temples and the newly completed dormitories of the customs can all be resettled. If it really doesn't work, the city hall and the Shanghai county government can also vacate some rooms for housing. When the day dawns, the people are all washed into the river to feed the fish and turtles, what else do we need to rescue?

If you want to escape, this official will take off your crown now, and then deal with you later, who still has a problem? ”

Since Chongzhen's first year to Shanghai to prepare for the establishment of Shanghai New County, the current Shanghai New District was established by Song Yingsheng single-handedly, and the officials of various departments under the City Hall were also single-handedly drawn out of the officials allocated by the Shanghai County Government and Songjiang Prefecture, and his prestige in Shanghai was almost unmatched. Song Yingsheng was angry at this moment, and the officials present suddenly didn't dare to continue complaining.

However, Shen Yiyuan, who was in charge of Shanghai's public security work, did not dare to agree like this, looking at the silent appearance of his colleagues, he had to say out loud: "Lord Song, tens of thousands of people will be relocated on such a stormy night, and it is definitely not enough to rely on hundreds of patrol police to maintain law and order. Did you ask the 1st Garrison Division to help maintain order? ”

As soon as Shen Yiyuan's words fell, an official questioned: "Will the First Garrison Division accept our request?" They are all Beijing soldiers, as long as they are not robbers attacking the city, they will not accept local orders..."

Song Yingsheng interrupted the discussion of his subordinates and said: "The first garrison division, the official personally went to invite, and now the official has issued the area that each officer needs to be responsible for..."

In the northwest barracks of the Shanghai Railway Station, Yao Yuancheng, the commander of the 1st Garrison Division who had just fallen asleep, was woken up by his personal guards, and while wearing his clothes, he shouted with resentment: "Is Song Yingsheng's brain broken?" This kind of weather actually made us go out of the camp to move the people, did he come to find it unpleasant..."

After Yao Yuancheng, who was furious, saw Song Yingsheng, he immediately calmed down. He looked at the gold-lettered token in Song Yingsheng's hand, and said with a gloomy face: "Mayor Song, Your Majesty gave you this troop transfer token, it doesn't seem to be used like this." Are you sure you want to use this token to mobilize my first garrison division? ”

Song Yingsheng's face did not fluctuate, he looked at Yao Yuancheng and said word by word: "Your Majesty asked me to mobilize the First Garrison Division and the Second Garrison Division to protect Shanghai at a critical moment. Now I think this is the critical moment for Shanghai. I ask General Yao to gather his troops and obey my assignment. ”

The corners of Yao Yuancheng's mouth twitched, he stared at Song Yingsheng and asked again, "This official wants to ask your lord again, do you want to use this token?" The officer will then report the situation of the night to the General Staff in detail. The official should remind your Excellency that mobilizing the army in non-war times is a matter of losing your head. ”

Song Yingsheng didn't answer immediately, he listened to the thunderous wind and rain outside, and finally made up his mind to nod again and said, "This officer is sure, please gather the army..."

Yao Yuancheng glanced at Song Yingsheng with a complicated expression, and finally ordered the whole army to be gathered at the adjutant on the side. Letting the soldiers out of the camp on such a stormy night will naturally be dissatisfied with the soldiers. However, after all, the 1st Garrison Division has been trained for several years, and its obedience is no longer comparable to that of the Beijing camp of that day. And this army is mostly subsidized by the local government on weekdays, so complaining is complaining, and the officers and soldiers finally obeyed the orders of the officials.

With the abundant resources of the trading port, and Song Yingsheng himself taking the lead in running everywhere, the army and local officials finally devoted themselves to the work of relocating the people, and transferred tens of thousands of people from the shacks on the river embankment before the Huangpu River soared.

When the sky was overcast and shining, Song Yingsheng and a group of subordinates watched from the high ground by the river, and most of the dense shacks along the river embankment were washed away, and everyone felt that it was really a fluke. If it had been left unchecked last night, at least thousands of people would have been washed into the Huangpu River.

It's just that Shanghai has escaped the catastrophe, but Chongming Island, which is not far from Shanghai, is not so lucky. The officials and guards of Chongming Island did not have such a responsible chief official as Song Yingsheng, so when the tidal wave caused by the strong wind broke through the earthen embankment protecting the lowlands of the island in the middle of the night, it immediately flooded more than a dozen villages on the lowlands, and more than 2,000 people were drowned or missing.

Chongming Island was affected by the damp disaster and Song Yingsheng used the excerpts of the army to deliver reports to the capital one after another.

The former made Qian Qianyi, the new head of the cabinet, very dissatisfied, and he felt that he had such a natural disaster as soon as he took office, which was too unlucky. The latter aroused criticism from many officials in the court, thinking that Song Yingsheng was too reckless.

The reason for these officials' criticism of Song Yingsheng was that since there were less than 20 dead and wounded in Shanghai that night, it can be seen that the demand for the 1st Garrison Division was not urgent, and perhaps as long as Shanghai itself could handle the incidents of that night.