Chapter 48 3 Eggs Cut Red Yanyan (1)

"(Chongzhen 12 years) November famine, the price of millet to 1,400 Wen, plague infection, people died eight or nine, so far, only 4,672 households remain in Mizhi County."

"(Chongzhen thirteenth year) there is no rain in spring, locusts eat wheat, the plague is rampant, people die five or six out of ten, and the age is fierce. Shidou rice is 1,700 Wen, there is no survivor of the bark of plants and trees, people eat vegetable seeds, live for a long time, cannibalism of flesh and bones, hazelnut and recklessness all over the field, there are several villages and no one is seen, and there are only 3,224 households left in Dingbian County. ”

"(In the thirteenth year of Chongzhen), there was a great drought, flying locusts ate wheat, plague, most of the people died, and they killed each other. There are only 5,100 households left in the county. ”

......

Zhao Kang looked at the columns of words with difficulty, and then looked at the helpless expressions of the governors and counties below, and his heart was very heavy. The most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life was only the rotting corpse in Fugu County, and the bloody heads of the two servants who were killed by the anti-thief Tian Hu, the one-eyed dragon and others. Cannibalism and killing each other, which have lost their humanity, can happen under their own rule, so you can see how hungry you are?

Zhao Kang has always believed that starvation is the most aggrieved way of death of all the ways to die. No one would want to starve themselves to death. You can die in battle, old age, sickness, falling, drowning, hanging, suffocation, poisoning, electrocution, and even thirst, but you should not starve to death.

According to statistics, the total number of households in Yan'an Prefecture, including Fugu County, is only 128624, about 600,000 people, and Qingyang Prefecture is only 21,255 households, about 120,000 people. The combined population of the two provinces is not even comparable to that of a small fourth- and fifth-tier city in the 21st century. Of course, there are probably some people who are not counted, but the total number will never exceed one million. This data made Zhao Kang feel very sad. You must know that in the 21st century, the resident population of Yulin City is close to 4 million, Qingyang is more than 2 million, Yan'an is also more than 2 million, and the three places together exceed 8 million.

The matter was so urgent that Zhao Kang immediately decided that the entire Yan'an and Qingyang prefectures under the jurisdiction of the governor of Yansui should be reformed according to the model of Fugu County. The health department and the police department were established in the governor's yamen, and the health bureau and police department were first established in each prefecture and county, which were directly under the jurisdiction of the health department and the police department, and were responsible for epidemic prevention and daily public security work. Although this move forcibly deprived the governors and counties of their powers, they had no choice but to obey Zhao Kang's orders in the current situation.

Each county counts the food and salary needed for disaster relief and reports to the governor's yamen to receive it. Refugees and disaster victims were provided with cash-for-work to reclaim wasteland, repair city walls, build water conservancy, and expand roads from Yulin to prefectures and counties. All prefectures and counties are required to be ready for planting seeds next year by the end of the year, and next year the governor's yamen will provide free seeds for new crops to all people in Yansui Town to plant.

Zhao Kang said: "Our Yansui Town had a big drought the year before last and a big drought this year, who dares to guarantee that there will be no drought next year and the year after?" Maybe in the next ten years, there will be a big drought every year, will the people in northern Shaanxi not live in the big drought? Zi is silent, strange and confused, for the ghosts and gods, I have always been respectful and far away, we must take out the spirit of people to conquer the sky and Yugong to move mountains, and build a new Yan'an, a new Qingyang. Therefore, it is necessary to build a large number of water conservancy projects in Yan'an and Qingyang, and northern Shaanxi is an area with a serious shortage of water, not only is there a lack of irrigation water, but even the daily water supply of ordinary residents is difficult to guarantee, and there is even a bad habit of taking a bath only three times in a lifetime in some places, and the fundamental reason for this is the lack of water. ”

"I will find a way to solve this year's grain problem, but before next year's spring ploughing, all localities in northern Shaanxi must solve the problem of irrigation. I don't care whether you are diverting water from the Yellow River, digging wells, or building ditches, I just want one thing, so that all the land can be irrigated. ”

Speaking of this, Zhao Kang looked around and asked, "Do you have any questions for everyone here?" If you have a problem, you should be bold. ”

Everyone seemed to be all about to talk and stop, and finally Zhang Ruoliang, the governor of Suide, said: "Lord Zhao, the lack of water in northern Shaanxi is no longer a situation of one or two days, and there is no solution in all dynasties, the loess on the Loess Plateau is fine, good for farming, but it is also easy to erod. The method of diverting water from the Yellow River for irrigation has been in place since ancient times, but the water does not flow far but will all be immersed in the ground, and it is impossible to build long-distance irrigation projects. ”

Zhao Kang thought for a while and said: "This is indeed a problem, but I will find a way to solve it, and you will first follow your own ability to divert water, and first take road repair and tuntian as the primary goal of this year." ”

Zhao Kang thought to himself: It seems that the construction of the cement plant has to be put on the agenda, otherwise in this ghost year, there will be a drought every year, and hundreds of thousands of people in Yan'an and Qingyang will eat me poorly. There is also Yan'an and Qingyang, which are all oil, which is a good thing, but you have to find a way to transport it to Yulin, and you have to find a way to start building trains and railways...... Alas...... The more Zhao Kang thought about things, the more irritated he became.

After the meeting, the governors and counties of each prefecture received the relief food they needed and returned to their respective administrative offices under the escort of the militia soldiers.

Zhao Kang returned to modern times with chaotic thinking. A person stays at home and studies steelmaking equipment. I have to say that Zhao Kang is very grateful to this evil new society, as long as the money is in place, everything can be bought, of course, the price of these heavy industrial equipment is also leveraged, after looking at it for a long time, Zhao Kang finally found that if he wants to engage in heavy industry now, then he can only use the 100,000 cubic meters of space to smuggle coal from the end of the Ming Dynasty, and he can't play at all.

First of all, iron-making and steel-making are not just a simple blast furnace and open-hearth furnace, which can produce tens of thousands of tons of high-quality steel per year, but also need a bunch of supporting equipment or something, so that Zhao Kang, who has just Chinese, is directly dizzy. In Zhao Kang's original thoughts, he thought that steelmaking should be very simple, build a large blast furnace, put coal burning below, throw iron ore into it from above, and install a water tap-like thing in the middle, and high-quality molten steel will automatically flow out of the tapper like tap water.