Emperor Chongzhen's side had just arranged the matter of imitating a linear rifled gun in great detail, and then he had to immediately face other government affairs that gave him a headache.

In the middle of August of the third year of Chongzhen, the inside and outside of the capital division of the Ming Dynasty were still dry and hot, and there was no rain for half a year from spring to summer.

From northern Shaanxi to Shanxi, and then to Xuanda, Hebei, Shandong, and the surrounding areas of Gyeonggi, almost the entire northern part of the Ming Dynasty once again suffered from severe drought.

In many places in Hebei, Shandong, and Henan, the buds planted with winter wheat have just grown into green seedlings more than a foot high, and they have dried up in the fields in patches.

The remarks about drought and locust plagues from Shandong, Henan, Hebei and other prefectures have been sent to Beijing one after another since the beginning of August, and then sent to the cabinet by the General Administration Department.

In the end, of course, one after another, all of them were sent to the desk in the Qianqing Palace, and all the pressure was put on Emperor Chongzhen.

Now that Emperor Chongzhen has succeeded to the throne for three years, although he has changed the situation of the Ming Dynasty to a certain extent, and changed the border situation from Zhili to Jibei, he is powerless for the weather in the north of the Ming Dynasty.

And he knew very well that he really couldn't do anything about it.

Therefore, when officials from the Hanlin Academy continued to write to the people, saying that the people outside were looking forward to the rain and asking the emperor to go to the Temple of Heaven to worship the heavens and ask for rain, now the Chongzhen Emperor can only leave this kind of recital in the middle, because he does not dare to go at all.

Of course, he didn't dare to go because he was afraid of something, after all, the Temple of Heaven was not far away, and there was no danger.

The reason why he didn't dare to go was because he knew that it was useless for anyone to go, and if he went, he would slap himself in the face, which would damage the prestige of the court in vain.

Emperor Chongzhen in history listened to all kinds of advice, how many times did he issue an edict to confess his mistakes to the heavens and all the people in the world, but what has changed?

Nothing can be changed, and the edict of sin can neither move the heavens nor the people of the world, and the only result is to sweep away the majesty of oneself again and again.

However, it is okay not to pray for rain, but in the face of the drought that has affected the entire north, he cannot help but ask the cabinet to take measures as soon as possible.

For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen asked the cabinet to write all over the country, and sent officials of the Agricultural Institute to Xuanda, Beizhi, Henan, Shandong and other places to guide the replanting of sweet potatoes and potatoes, and try to recover a little loss.

On the other hand, he sent a letter to Su Maoxiang and Yuan Keli, the governor of Caoyun, to the household department of Nanjing, asking them to double the purchase of rice in summer and autumn from all parts of Jiangnan and Guangzhou, as a reserve of grain in the north in autumn and winter.

At the same time, in order to express his concern about the drought in the north, Emperor Chongzhen once again issued an edict to reduce or exempt the summer and autumn taxes in Shanxi, Xuanda, Henan, and Shandong, and announced that these provinces with severe drought would allow the people to flee from the famine, and persuaded the tenant farmers and the desperate poor people in the severely affected areas under his jurisdiction to flee and migrate to Yunnan, Guizhou, Hezhong, Monan, Jibei and other places.

With the example of more than 40,000 people from the Ordos tribes who moved thousands of miles to the Wusi-Tibet region under the escort of officials and soldiers, Emperor Chongzhen was not as worried about the large-scale migration organized by the government as before.

Therefore, in the middle and late August of more than ten days, Emperor Chongzhen led the cabinet chief assistant Li Guoyi, Hubu Shangshu Bi Zisu and others to the Wuying Hall where the military aircraft usually deliberates, facing the terrain sand table of the Ming Dynasty, and discussed and planned the direction and route of the drought-stricken migrants in several northern provinces with everyone.

Emperor Chongzhen knew that such a thing could not be rushed, and the Han people in the interior of the Ming Dynasty would rather starve in their hometown and guard the ancestral one-third of an acre of land than immigrate to other places to make a living unless they had to do so.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, due to years of war, the population was greatly reduced and the land was largely barren, and the imperial court let Shanxi, which had a relatively large population, emigrate to several surrounding provinces.

It stands to reason that Shanxi has a lot of people and little land, and when they immigrate to a new place, they divide the fields according to the plot and give them seeds and farm tools, which is a good thing, and it is better than renting the land of the landlord and working as a tenant for a short time.

But it's so strange that the common people don't believe in such a good thing, thinking that the imperial court is going to send them to the frontier to garrison the frontier.

In the minds of many people, emigrating to other places, especially to the frontiers, is tantamount to exile.

Therefore, no matter how hard the court and the government tried to publicize it, no one wanted to go.

In the end, there was no way, and in order to complete the immigration task, the local government could only resort to deception and escort along the way.

This is how the famous locust tree immigrants in history came.

For this problem, the Chongzhen Emperor also does not have a good way to solve it, but it must be solved.

If you can't solve this problem, in the climate and environment of the late Ming Dynasty, even if you eliminate the thieves in the northwest, the world will not be peaceful, because the Central Plains, Shandong, and Jianghuai regions will have a large number of thieves sooner or later.

The existing population in these areas, which appeared to be surplus in relation to the capacity of arable land, had to be transferred to the newly opened frontier territory of the imperial court.

These surplus populations did not immigrate, and the north of the Yangtze River in the Ming Dynasty, the Qin, Jin, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, and Jianghuai regions could not settle down after all, and the newly opened frontier territory of the imperial border army could not be truly incorporated into the territory of China after all.

Of course, the common people in the late Ming Dynasty would not have such a high consciousness, so they didn't care what kind of Chinese territory you had.

Some would rather starve to death at home than risk emigrating to unknown places.

Now, of course, this Chongzhen Emperor does not want to take too cruel measures to reduce the population of these areas, such as allowing Hong Chengchou and Sun Chuanting to slaughter the thieves and rebels to a certain extent, such as the large-scale slaughter after Jianyu broke through Xuanda to a certain extent, including to a certain extent, allowing or even conniving at some of Yuan Chonghuan's actions in the Musuman settlement area on the three sides of the northwest.

In fact, these methods are all resigned to the last resort.

But if there is any other way, we cannot make this decision or let it go.

Although he knew very well that these men would eventually die in the near future, either from the frequent famines in the north, or from the frequent wars in the north, or from the plague that later ravaged the whole north.

But allowing these people to die to some extent from their own inaction, as a person from the hereafter, will eventually have a hard time in conscience.

The three-year drought in Chongzhen, in the original history, directly led to the entire north of the Ming Dynasty falling into chaos.

In addition to the thieves in northern Shaanxi who spread like sparks on the prairie like sparks, civil unrest of various scales in Henan, Shandong, Jianghuai and other places also broke out one after another, completely chaotic.

At that time, Huang Taiji led the army of Jianlu, which had just ravaged many areas around Beijing and Beizhili, and a large number of displaced people were displaced and unable to survive.

And many of the armies of King Qin in various places were defeated or fled halfway.

These deserters, who were also unable to survive, immediately joined the civil unrest in various places, which made the entire Ming Dynasty take a sharp turn from then on, and since then embarked on the road of collapse and defeat.

Therefore, the continuous drought in the late Ming Dynasty was a more fatal problem than that of the thieves, and even more than the construction of prisoners.

Therefore, when the drought in the north of the Ming Dynasty continued to come one after another, Emperor Chongzhen could only reduce or exempt the summer and autumn taxes in the northern provinces as appropriate, and at the same time purchase grain to prepare for famine, he began to prepare for immigration by local governments.

Under the personal auspices of Emperor Chongzhen, after many days of deliberation between the cabinet and the household department, on August 25, the third year of Chongzhen, the Ming court officially issued the immigration edict "Reclamation Order" to all parts of the world in the form of a holy decree:

"Fengtian carried the emperor, and the edict said: The emperor has been built for three hundred years, and the Chinese people have received his grace, and within the four seas, hundreds of millions of people have enjoyed peace and life......

"As for today, the number of households is increasing day by day, and the number of people is increasing day by day, from the top and bottom of the big river, the north and south of the Yangtze River, the fields are exhausted, the land is exhausted, and the mountains and villagers will seek to reclaim tenants, but the household registration is increasing day by day, and the land is overwhelmed!

"In every year of drought and famine, the people will be displaced, and the farmers will starve to death because of the increase in the number of people!

"Today, the imperial court is determined to open up the border and expand the new soil, Hezhong, Monan, Saishang, Jibei, and even Yunnan, Guizhou and Xikang, the fertile field is more than thousands of miles, but there is no one to have soil......

"The so-called emperor's grace will reach hundreds of millions of people, now issued an order to reclaim, tell the people of the world, the imperial court in the north of the river to set up officials to reclaim, where the Ming people, the land is not divided into the southeast and northwest, people do not count the farmers, industry and commerce, the mouth does not distinguish between the old and the weak, women and children, can hear the order to go, open up the wasteland and reclaim the land, forever for the world.

"The officials and soldiers of the world, those who can recruit people to reclaim the border land to 100 people, the county and the lord are awarded by the county, and the military is awarded to 100 households and the general; Those who can recruit people to reclaim the border land to 1,000 people will be awarded the state and state judgment, and the military will be awarded to thousands of households and garrisons; If the number of recruits is particularly large, the number of officials will be increased according to the number of ......"

Together with this public edict to the world, it was sent to the governors and ministers of all provinces in the world, as well as another non-public will formed by Emperor Chongzhen and the cabinet after repeated discussions.

In addition to telling the people of the world that they can go to the border areas to open up wasteland and cultivate fields, Emperor Chongzhen, in order to avoid no one to respond, and at the same time to prevent the drought in the northern provinces from causing civil unrest in various places as in history, he also set a special holy decree for the migration tasks of the governors of Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong within three years:

"Shaanxi's political envoys immigrated to Tianshui and the river in Longxi, regardless of men, women, and children.

"The political envoys of Henan must immigrate to Hezhong, Naturalization, and Yunnan-Guizhou, regardless of men, women, and children.

"Shanxi's political envoys are under the Hezhong, naturalized, and Xuanda immigrants, regardless of men, women, and children, with 20,000 people.

"Under the rule of the governor of Hebei, the state capitals must immigrate to Xuanfu and Rehe, regardless of men, women, and children, with 20,000 people.

"The political envoys of Shandong must emigrate to Rehe, Lushun, and Dongjiang, regardless of men, women, and children, and 50,000 people......

There are a total of 140,000 people in the five provincial-level regions, and they are distributed to the prefectures, prefectures, and counties below each locality.

If the governors and political envoys of these five provinces had combined the immigrants who had voluntarily gone to the land reclamation and the immigrants sent by the government, then the task of relocation should be easily completed.

This is the first immigration task clearly assigned by Emperor Chongzhen to the government of the northern provinces, so although he is very anxious, he still insists on being cautious and cautious, and intends to test the water first, if it is successfully completed, then Chongzhen will appropriately increase the quota in four years.