The escape of Chang Shu and his group was unusually smooth, and even they themselves found it strange, first they encountered a group of cavalry with a red flag, and as soon as they started to fight for a while, the group of cavalry fled with shouts, and threw down dozens of horses and rations on horseback. There is no danger in crossing the Liao River, the river has long been frozen, and each flag has sent bannermen to strictly guard the crossings of the river, but the bannermen with blue flags opened their eyes and said nonsense, insisting that this group of outlaws were the Eight Banners soldiers who went to patrol the borders of the Mongolian foreign domains, and they thought that the clothes and rations they brought were not enough, and insisted on stuffing them with cotton clothes and food in Karen (outpost). After stepping on the ice and crossing the river, several people rode horses to catch up, and the leader of the yellow flag Niu Lu Zhangjing showed Chang Shu the Fengzhou military card - his real identity is the Fengzhou military capital division of Shangpin, leading the affairs of Shengjing to mention the Tang official.

"My name is Baoshun, the letter from the Great Commander's Mansion has arrived at the Shengjing Titang Office, ordering us to rescue the brothers of Zhenglanqi at any cost, this time I will accompany you to Fengzhou, come with me, there are people from the Ulan Hada Titang Office over there." The young officer said to Chang Shu.

What is there to say now, all the way to the black bar, Chang Shu and his party followed Baoshun to a mountain near Ulan Hada, where there was a very hidden camp, and some Mongols who looked like horse thieves also sent clothes, food, and firewood. Baoshun said that it is very safe here, and the surrounding Mongolian tribes and the Eight Banners patrolling the border have already had a tacit understanding with Fengzhou, and they will never dare to come to find trouble, and someone will come to pick them up when the weather is warm, and then they can go on the road.

Chang Shu stayed here for more than half a month, and some fugitives from the Blue Flag came one after another, and the number finally exceeded 500. In mid-February, a cavalry under the banner of the Fengzhou merchant army arrived at the camp, brought them horses and weapons, and the group finally set foot on the road west to Fengzhou, and it was ten years before they returned to their hometown, when they really fought back to liberate Liaodong.

Chongzhen's ninth year seems to have a bad omen, Fengzhou is a spring cold at the beginning of the year, Yang Dazhi, the governor of the Department of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry, warned that this year's year is not good, we must start spring ploughing in advance, and at the same time, the water cellars of each family should also increase water storage, and the Prime Minister's Office is most worried about spring ploughing, and issued spring ploughing orders to the government guards as early as possible. As soon as the spring parade ended, the men, women and children of Toyosu were busy, and the water cellars of every house were filled with ice and snow, and the farmland and water conservancy began to be repaired. It seems to confirm Yang Dazhi's statement that there has not been a drop of rain since the beginning of spring, and there is another drought in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, which is definitely not a good thing for Fengzhou.

In the middle of February, the disaster situation in Guannai became more serious, the summer grain died in the ground, the autumn grain could not be sown, the common people were desperate, they fled the famine one after another, Shanxi was full of homeless people without food and clothing, and there was a situation of great hunger and cannibalism. The imperial court did not react to the drought in Shanxi for a long time, and the governor of Shanxi, Wu Xian, and the governor of Datong, Jiao Yuanpu, were so anxious that they had almost nothing to do, and they even set their sights on Fengzhou, which still had something to eat. The two asked Li Yu for help at the same time, on the grounds that Fengzhou had been living on the import of money, grain, and property from Shanxi for a long time, and if Shanxi was erosive, he would not be better, so the imperial court could ignore Shanxi, but he had to take care of it, Wu Zhu and Jiao Yuanpu also threatened Li Yu that if he really couldn't come up with money and food, it would be easy to do it, and there were displaced people in Shanxi who had no food to eat, and it would not be long before thousands of displaced people would pour out of the side wall to ask him for food.

Li Yu was so angry that he slapped the table and scolded, I only breathed a sigh of relief last year, and I have some food in my hands, but you don't look for the emperor when you are affected by the disaster, but you are eyeing me, are you bullying the poor like this? Scolding and scolding but had to make a move, Wu Zhu and Jiao Yuanpu were right, if Shanxi was rotten, he would never have good fruit to eat, and these two people were friendly since they took office, Jiao Yuanpu learned the lesson of Jiao Yuanqing, the governor of Xuanfu from his brother, and basically ignored what Fengzhou did, and never caused trouble to Li Yu, and Wu Xian made up his mind to rely on the gentry to govern the place, and was extremely tolerant of the Shanxi gentry and military merchants on the same boat in Fengzhou, and the gentry dared to openly leak and owe the court taxes, Military businessmen have also made the smuggling business prosperous, and Fengzhou has benefited a lot from it, where can such a good official be found? At a critical time, they still have to help, lest they be dismissed by the imperial court and replaced by two people who are against them.

Li Yu stubbornly instructed the Prime Minister's Office to try to prepare a batch of disaster relief money and food, and entrusted Liu Zhilun to go to Yanghe and Datong to find Liang Tingdong and Jiao Yuanpu to negotiate disaster relief matters, and also wrote letters to Bai Xianzhi and Zhang Daojun in Shanxi, asking them to assist the local government in providing relief to the victims -- with Wu Xian's acquiescence, the Shanxi gentry refused to pay taxes to the imperial court, but allocated a large amount of money to Bai Xianzhi and Zhang Daojun to train the township soldiers, and the two trained more than 30,000 young and strong people for the local government, and also selected 3,000 people to form the Shanxi People's Army. This local snake army cooperated with the tiger and the tiger-fierce officers and troops to eradicate the forces of Gao Jiaji and other bandits in one fell swoop, and Bai Xianzhi and Zhang Daojun had soldiers and money in their hands, so they should naturally contribute to the local people.

Bai Xianzhi and Zhang Daojun quickly replied to complain that this drought was unprecedentedly serious, and it was no longer a drop in the bucket that could solve the problem, and the little money and food in their hands could only protect themselves, and the disaster relief was more than enough but not enough, and the two also persuaded Li Yu to make up his mind to enter the customs, rely on the strong force of the Fengzhou army to stabilize the place, and then organize the displaced people to save themselves according to the Fengzhou model, which is the only way to solve the problem.

Li Yuzheng wanted to write a letter to scold these two guys who wanted to drag him into the water, but bad news came one after another - Xuandewei commanded Gu Keli, and Dongsheng Zuowei commanded Wuerden to report urgently, the displaced people crossed the border walls of Datong and Shanxi towns into Fengzhou, especially the border walls near the Killing Tiger Pass and Deshengkou were demolished last year and have not been rebuilt, and a large number of displaced people are flocking in from both places, and it is difficult to stop them with the strength of the guard alone, and they ask the Prime Minister's Office for immediate reinforcements; The commander of Dongsheng's right guard made Nuomin's urgent report even more shocking, the northwest drought and the people's hunger, Ningxia Town mutiny, the governor Wang Ji died under the sword of the chaotic soldiers, the mutinous soldiers with weapons and a large number of displaced people are also pouring towards Ordos, and the deputy garrison Feng Shujie has led people to the border wall to intercept.

The situation suddenly deteriorated during the spring ploughing, and Ma Shiying, the governor of the General Administration Department, asserted that if the influx of displaced people was not stopped in time, the collapse of Fengzhou would only be in the moment, and the officials of the Prime Minister's Office were frightened. However, only two days later, Ouerden, Gu Keli, and Han Dagong jointly reported to the Prime Minister's Office that the number of displaced people leaving the border had reached about 50,000, and that the number of displaced people was increasing rapidly every day, and that they could not stop the rolling flow of people at all, and were forced to evacuate 15 miles from the border wall.

Liu Zhilun, the governor of naturalization, also came back in despair, and found nothing on this trip, Liang Tingdong, the governor of Xuanda in Yanghe, was most afraid of this Liu Shengren, so he hid and did not show his face, and pushed out the deputy envoy of Yanghe to deal with it. When Yang He's deputy envoy saw Liu Zhilun, he complained bitterly, neither could he think of a disaster relief method, let alone take out disaster relief money and food, and told Liu Zhilun not to count on the imperial court, the imperial court is at most exempt from taxes, and the others are powerless, so let's take care of it by ourselves this year. Liu Zhilun left Yanghe in disappointment, and hurried to Datong, at this time Datong Town has been martial law, all the prefectures, prefectures, county gates are closed, allowing the displaced people to wander around, Liu Zhilun finally called the city gate to enter Datong City.

In the Datong governor's mansion, Jiao Yuanpu cried bitterly, crying to Liu Zhilun that since he patrolled Datong, no one above cares about the disobedience below, but the official side does nothing, and he feels uncomfortable when he sees the people suffering from sin, he has impeached himself to the court for dereliction of duty, and asks to dismiss the official and go home, this Datong governor who wants to do it, anyway, he is not going to do it, and the disaster relief money and food aided by Fengzhou do not need to be given, and most of it will definitely be embezzled in the hands of the government, it is better to directly give relief to the people from Fengzhou, Jiao Yuanpu also swore that he would never instigate the people to go out of the customs, He is actually out of control of the current situation - this is a good old man, what else can Liu Zhilun say, but he has to comfort him.

Liu Zhilun went straight to the General Soldier's Mansion when he left the Governor's Mansion, and Wang Pu, the chief soldier of Datong, usually claimed to be the brother of Han Min, and secretly partnered with Han Min's wife to do business, but at a critical time, he fell into the well and indulged the homeless people out of the customs, this guy is too bad! Liu Zhilun rushed into the general soldier's mansion angrily, and saw Wang Pu is scolding, Wang Pu was scolded urgently, jumping to his feet and shouting grievances, not that he didn't help his friends, but there were too many displaced people, it is estimated that the displaced people in Shanxi and Datong towns who flocked to the side wall were no less than 300,000 together, where can the officers and soldiers stop it, and the vast majority of displaced people are from the mouth of the tiger and the victory of the pass, the side wall there is demolished in Fengzhou, and even the road has been paved for others, and it is your own business to stop the displaced people, Liu Zhilun was so angry that he stomped his feet and returned.

"Hermes-Epitek, we can only rely on ourselves, I know that the situation is critical at the moment, but you must not do anything to the people, they are risking their way out of the customs just to beg you to give them a way to live, help them, do you know what I saw on the road? I saw the corpses on the side of the road with only white bones left, I saw people rushing to feed on horse manure, I saw abandoned children dying, I saw ......" Liu Zhilun said and couldn't stop crying.

Li Yu covered his head and lay on the table, and suddenly understood what he couldn't figure out before, why did the old Khan change the policy of Han people and Zhu Shen being both subjects of the Great Khan, and instead raised a butcher's knife to the Han people to kill wildly, because he couldn't solve the predicament of Liaodong, and could only choose to sacrifice foreign races to protect Zhu Shen's interests. Why did Hong Chengchou risk the world's disapproval and wantonly kill the displaced people, because he also couldn't solve the plight of the northwest, so he said that killing half of the northwest would make the other half of the northwest people live. Behind many incomprehensible things is a last resort, and now he is also facing a crisis, but can he raise the butcher knife because he has to do so? Thinking of this, Li Yu suddenly had an urge to run away, he raised his head sharply only to find that Ortai, Li Fugui, Li Huai and Liu Zhilun were watching him.

"Hermes-Epitek, there are many things that cannot be escaped, you can only face them, think about the road we have traveled over the years, and there are hundreds of thousands of Fengzhou people who trust you, grit your teeth and go to the end." Ortai seemed to have seen through Li Yu's thoughts.

Li Fugui nodded thoughtfully: "Maybe it's time to make up your mind, immediately convene a meeting of the office, and the relevant officials of the Prime Minister's Office and the House of Representatives will also come together, and they must come up with a solution immediately." ”

Present at the meeting were other officials other than Namur in Khalkha, as well as Fan Yongdou, prime minister of the Banknote Bureau, Ma Qi, governor of the Commercial and Market Division, Han Lin, governor of the Industrial Construction Department, Bi Lige, governor of the Taxation Department, Ma Shiying, governor of the General Administration Department, Zhao Sheng, governor of the Treasury Department, Yang Dazhi, governor of the Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Department, Sun Tingyao, vice chairman of the National Assembly, Cai Ruxun, the prefect of the Naturalized Economy, and Shen Shoulian and Wang Fang, premiers of the Liberal Party and the Civic Party.

The atmosphere of the meeting is very dull, everyone knows the current situation, the influx of hundreds of thousands of displaced people will definitely overwhelm Fengzhou, but the use of conventional methods has been unable to stop this flow of people, two roads are in front of us, either to kill, to drive the displaced people out, so as to keep Fengzhou, or soft-hearted, let the influx of displaced people, and finally everyone is finished together, whether to kill or release the displaced people is fatal, who dares to open this mouth?

After being silent for a long time, Li Huai sighed and waved his hand to Ma Shiying, Ma Shiying hesitated for a while before slowly speaking: Fengzhou has been relatively stable in recent years, and the population is also growing, and the attached population is increasing rapidly, for example, last year, more than 5,000 captured Datong Ming troops were in Fengzhou, these people stood their ground, turned their faces and recruited more than 20,000 relatives from the Guannei, recovered the 5,000 people of Omulun outside the border of Xuanfu, and marched into Sanbula River to contain more than 7,000 people from the Polo Horqin Division, plus sporadic people who continued to sneak out of the customs, The naturalized population of Fengzhou reached 450,000, and if you add the Chahar and unnaturalized black households, it must have exceeded 500,000.

"Our territory continues to expand, a large amount of land has been reclaimed outside the Hetao and Xuanfu borders, and the pastures have also expanded to the north of Daqingshan, but the border is a bitter cold land, the grain production is limited, and it is not easy to feed the current population. Ma Shiying finally sighed and said.

Li Huai nodded: "The land in Fengzhou is large enough, but the immigrants need seeds, farm tools, cattle and sheep for reclamation and nomadism, and they can't see results in a short period of time, and they have to subsidize money and grain, our financial resources are too weak to solve the survival of the displaced people, and the Prime Minister's Office believes that the displaced people should be resettled on the spot in the Guannai." ”

"And what about our business and commerce? You can always say that Toyosu lacks labor. Li Yu asked.

Li Jianji replied: "Fengzhou is indeed short of labor, and mines, workshops, and even military fields and vocational fields need people, and about 50,000 laborers need to be gradually introduced in two or three years, maybe a little more, and the sudden influx of a large number of people will definitely not be able to absorb it." ”

The meeting fell into a dull mood again, everyone sighed incessantly, Ortai said bitterly: "I don't want to see bloodshed, whether it is the people of Fengzhou or Guannei who bleed, Fengzhou must not become another Jin country or Ming country, this year's planned westward expansion must be canceled, we will do our best to fight, Lao Ma, you have been the prefect of Datong for a few years, and you are most familiar with the situation in Datong, if you have any good way, you can boldly say it, as long as you don't kill people, you can discuss anything." ”

"Send troops, the problem in the customs can only be solved in the customs," Ma Shiying glanced at Liu Zhilun, saw that the other party had no reaction, and continued, "Why is Shanxi poor, in addition to the barren land, the greater reason is the maladministration of the Ming Dynasty - the guard system, Emperor Taizu set up a guard to raise soldiers, and each Ding granted fifty acres of land, so that he could raise himself and not leave the country for generations, thinking that raising a million soldiers did not cost a penny or a mile, but the burden of soldiers was extremely heavy, and at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, he had to pay eighteen stones of Tuntian grains, and later changed to six stones, which was far heavier than the civilian field, and the soldiers fled in an endless stream, As a result, there were no soldiers available at all, and the nobles and local magnates colluded with each other to seize the land of the guard, and the soldiers who did not desert also became tenants. Haoqiang has the power to occupy the Weisuo field, and he does not pay the grain of the tuntian field or the tax of the people's land, but the exploitation of the people is not light at all. Take Datong as an example, more than 200 years since the founding of the country, the field is still there, but the landlord does not know how many stubbles, after increasing the size layer by layer, the rent is generally more than fifty percent, the common people encounter the wind and rain and have something to eat, natural disasters and man-made disasters can only flee, abandon the land more than 10,000 hectares. When I was the prefect, I also wanted to collect the abandoned Weisho field as a private land to settle the landless people, but I was intimidated by Shangguan and Haoqiang as soon as I showed my thoughts, and I was afraid! From now on, I don't dare to think about it again, but I Fengzhou is the world's strongest, I don't need to care about these villains who drink the blood of the people and eat the flesh of the people, snatch the land back and return it to the people, and then organize the people to tuntian according to the Fengzhou model, and the problem of displaced people will be solved. The Great Commander, it is natural to raise the people of the Ming Dynasty with the land of the Ming Dynasty, we are doing the right thing for the heavens, and we are determined to send troops into the customs, this is the only way. ”

"No, Fengzhou has a "Private Property Protection Order", and the landlord's land should also be protected, we can't go back on our word, not to mention that the gentry of Shanxi have always supported Fengzhou, and we have to rely on them to develop industry and commerce. Li Jianji immediately shook his head in disagreement.

"The officers' fields are also bought by bloodshed, and if we go to rob their fields today, will we be able to rob our fields tomorrow, this precedent must not be set, and it is okay to send troops, but we should take advantage of the situation to control the whole of Shanxi, where there is land that can be cultivated, and it is more than enough to resettle the displaced people, so that the problem of the displaced people can be solved once and for all, and there is no need to rob private land." Du Wenhuan frowned and said dissatisfied.

Li Jianji is a Ming Dynasty businessman, his family has thousands of acres of fertile land, Du Wenhuan is a hereditary high-ranking official, and the land he occupies will naturally not be less, of course, he does not tolerate the deprivation of their land, but what about those displaced people? And if I just distribute the land to the common people, will they really have a way to live? Where do farm tools, seeds, and rations come from? Li Yu silently walked out of the lobby, leaving a room of people looking at each other.