The atmosphere in the palace was oppressively tight.

Since five years ago, Qilu Linqing, Jizhou Guguan, Guangdong Province Gaoyao, Xiangnan Lingling and other counties have been flooded; The tide of Zhangzhou in Fujian entered the city, the water in the city was more than a stretch deep, and many of the government offices, warehouses, prisons, and houses of soldiers and civilians collapsed, drowning more than 300 people, and more than 50,000 houses collapsed, and there was no natural disaster for several years.

God appreciates faces, and every year the wind and rain are smooth.

However, in the spring of this year, drought broke out again in the southeastern part of the Central Plains and the northern part of Anhui Province.

Although the Chinese people in this year have more or less surplus food at home. The disaster in one season will not be like in the previous Qing Dynasty, and millions of people will become homeless, divorced and lost. However, the Huanghuai Plain has been hit by a severe drought, and wheat output is sure to drop sharply, and domestic grain prices, especially wheat and flour prices, have risen in response.

The Huanghuai Plain is the most densely populated place with the Chinese population, not to mention the small territory, but the number of people affected by the disaster is as many as more than 3 million, but as one of the centers of gravity of China's agriculture, the development of industry and commerce and trade is far less than that of Jiangnan and Fujian. Local businesses simply can't afford to eat up to that much labor.

As the main agricultural production area, ordinary farmers on the Huanghuai Plain now have a full stomach, or even eat a little better, it is not a problem, there may be a few surplus money at home, and a lot of grain is stored, but now the grain is not valuable, to say how rich the people here are, but it can't be called.

It is impossible for every family to have someone to go to the army to work, and not go out, only to dig in the land, even if the imperial court reduces taxes, after the people eat and drink, how much money can they get in a year?

The impact of this drought is still very great.

The prefectures and counties are trying their best to reassure the people, mobilize materials for the victims, and organize drought-fighting work, but the cabinet is most afraid of whether the drought at this time will cause locust plagues.

Every year, from spring to Mid-Autumn Festival, this is the breeding season for East Asian locusts. 'Locusts in the drought' is not a joke.

It is the drought on the Huanghuai Great Plain that is very important to the cabinet.

This is also because the imperial court is now too lenient. I wish there was not a single beggar in the city.

If this is changed to the Manchu Qing Dynasty, the central and local governments will not need to be captured so much pressure, exempt the local taxes that cannot be collected, let the victims themselves go to other places to beg for a living, and provide some gruel in places where conditions permit, and pay attention to not letting refugees gather to make trouble, this is already the biggest 'good governance' of the imperial court, anyway, the black cauldron is carried by God. As long as you don't want to rebel, no one dares to apply this disaster to the emperor's immorality, this is a natural disaster.

But now that Chen Han is in power, the government's control over the local government is very deep, so naturally it will have to be blamed to the end.

There is no reason, when the wind and rain are good, the court is in charge of the countryside, and when the famine comes, the countryside is no longer under the control of the court.

Chen Ming didn't talk nonsense, turned to the director of his chamberlain and asked, "What plans does the cabinet have to report?" ”

There is no need for him to make ideas on state affairs, and the cabinet will draw up various plans and wait for him to decide. If Chen Ming doesn't even bother to do this, the cabinet can make a decision immediately, as long as Chen Ming delegates power first.

The first is the old method, which is to use work for relief, to repair small water conservancy projects in local areas, to build roads in townships and counties, and to build major projects in the central government, so that all the people who have been affected by the disaster and have no farm work will be included in the temporary infrastructure system. Although this programme is costly and requires consultation between the local, central and project beneficiaries, it is also beneficial to the country.

It's just that recently the spread of the country is a bit bigger, in addition to the Americas, there is also Egypt, and Napoleon has already returned from Syria to Egypt. Construction on the eastern section of the Suez Canal has already begun, and China's fiscal revenues are high, but the budget is also tight.

The Wehrmacht's million-strong army has not yet been fully dressed.

The second option is immigration!

Today's China, whether in the Americas or Nanmingzhou, the vast and boundless land, lacks nothing, what is lacking is people, and it is simply an ideal place for 'flood discharge'. Transferring people who have lost their livelihoods to the outside world is both disaster relief and development.

But it also requires a lot of money.

The Huanghuai Plain is one of the most densely populated areas of the Chinese, and three million people have been affected in a small area. The local government was reluctant.

Nowadays, China is rarely immigrating on a large scale. I heard that the next cabinet, the sign of the immigration bureau will be removed, and it will become an exit and entry management department. Responsible for the entry and exit of foreigners to China, immigration, study abroad, visas, etc.

In the final analysis, this is because the imperial court wants to maintain the comprehensive strength of the local area.

This third plan is actually a variant of the first case, in which the imperial court supports new businesses in the disaster-stricken areas, turning the victims into workers, so that the victims can eat without relying on the fields. This approach needs to be integrated into the situation on the ground, which is very mental and costly. It is also a question of whether the newly established factory industry can be stabilized after leaving the support of the government, and the risk is unpredictable.

The fourth plan is to link the disaster relief work in the Huanghuai region with the excavation of the Suez Canal in Egypt. Pull the refugees directly to Egypt to work as laborers for a year.

Spicy eggs.

It has been several months since the start of the construction of the Suez Canal, but the Ottoman Empire, because of the invasion of the French, has not fulfilled some of the things that it had promised before. Whether it's human or material!

The Suez Canal is very close to the Nile Delta, and even closer to the Mansoura Fortress. Naturally, Napoleon would not really tear his face with China and send troops to raid here, but Elam and Ottoman could not organize manpower to 'reinforce' the canal project until Napoleon was completely resolved. The problem now is that in order to ensure progress, Chen Han must send more employees there this year.

Although the army under Napoleon was not large, it was highly motivated and extremely capable of field warfare. The Ottoman Empire organized its forces along the Mediterranean region in the western part of the Celestial Peninsula and fought two major battles with Napoleon, both of which were defeated. Even though the Ottoman army in the second battle was more than twice as strong as Napoleon's army, it was still defeated.

The war in Egypt is still troublesome.

The last plan is to bring together the above four strategies, adapt measures to local conditions, set up industries, construction projects, labor exports, and immigration. It is to combine all four schemes, and use whatever scheme is suitable there. This plan may not take as much as much, but it will require a huge amount of local and central manpower to plan, manage and supervise its implementation.

Chen Ming dislikes 'emergency rescue and disaster relief' the most. This thing started suddenly, the data statistics are too troublesome and troublesome, and the money spent is nothing, but what about the manpower and energy used? Sometimes Chen Ming wants to set up a special disaster relief and rescue emergency department, or include post-disaster reconstruction and aftermath work.

The statisticians of various central departments are all elites of the new era of Chen Han officialdom.

"I think that the first four strategies, one of which is single, all have only shortcomings, and each strategy in parallel has the greatest effect and the least cost. There are great benefits to look forward to in the future. The only concern is that it is too much to influence the center. ”

From the bottom of his heart, Chen Ming is inclined to the fifth option. But if you want to do the fifth option, the cabinet will be busy. The latter does not have much to do with the military, but for the subordinate departments, there is trouble.

And it's also a hassle outside of the work schedule.

Chen Han's financial expenditure can be budgeted, and the work of the whole year can be planned, but in the event of such an unplanned disaster, no one can do anything.

What's more, spring drought is not necessarily a simple natural disaster, it is often followed by summer floods or locust plagues. It is foreseeable that the Huanghuai Plain, which has been inherited for 25 years, will not be at peace.

Of course, if God wants to work hard to practice Huang Huai, then morality aside, from a practical point of view, this natural disaster, and most of the other disasters that will follow, will bring Chen Han a great fortune, that is, millions of 'active population'.

If these people are involved in industrial production, it will definitely have a great stimulating effect on society. And even if only a small part of them end up in the industrial tide, it is precious.

Of course, America, Nanyang, Nanmingzhou and other places will definitely keep an eye on these people. In the past few years, the resettlement project has become weaker and weaker, and many fertile lands overseas have not been cultivated.

Even some immigrants from Luzon and Malay still have a situation of passing away from agriculture.

The land tax on these new soils is very low, and farming can provide food and clothing steadily, but there is no abundance. In those places, there is almost no way to make more money. Who has stabilized the price of this grain again?

Now in Nanyang, the last way to get money is not to farm, but to mine and mine, which is better than the lumber yard.

To some extent, slavery has gradually emerged in Luzon and Annam, and some Chinese people have lured or even captured natives to work as coolies in order to obtain cheap labor, and transport them to the mines to do low-skilled labor such as mining and carrying sand. When he died, he threw it into the mine! It is much more convenient to use than Chinese, Japanese, Siamese, etc.

When three million people were affected, Emperor Chen's first thought was not that the victims were in turmoil, but that cleaning up the 'disaster' would waste too much of his energy. It's like when things come out, it's not about whether it's flat or not, it's not about how much money you accompany, but about worrying about being affected. That's definitely a lot of money!

But today's Chen Han has such capital.

Thirty years of development, taking last year's data as an example, Chen Han has developed decades of shipping, as of the 24th year of Chengtian, Chen Han has registered no less than 500,000 seafarers, and has 7,000 large, medium and small seagoing vessels, with a total scale of more than 3 million tons.

The local population level is still at the level of 200 million, but the urban population is not less than 40 million, and the population of Nanjing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou is not just one million, but two million. The populations of Yanjing and Wuhan also exceed one million. The rest, such as provincial capitals and cities such as Lushan, Yangzhou, Tianjin, and Yantai, have a population of more than 500,000.

The figures that best reflect Chen Han's entry into modern industrial society are the output of steel and coal.

Chen Han's annual steel production is close to 1 million tons, four times that of the United Kingdom. Coal production is also around 40 million tons, compared with the British's coal output of 12 million tons, which can be said to be absolutely surpassed.

Later generations often said that the national strength of the 19th century was determined by steel and coal, which is by no means a simple number. And as ships and trains grow more influential in China, coal production will be even higher.

The chassis of the carriage, the iron frame of the crane, the guns and swords, and many machines represented by the steam engine, and even the iron used in shipbuilding, as well as the daily needs of the common people, a country's demand for steel is ubiquitous.

The annual fiscal revenue is just a direct manifestation of this.

Chen Ming decided to return to Nanjing. Dealing with affairs in Hangzhou, after all, is not as convenient as Nanjing. He didn't come to Hangzhou with a small imperial court, at most he was surrounded by attendants' rooms and attachés from various ministries.

Originally, it came out to breathe, but I didn't expect God to be so faceless. 、

Thinking of returning to Nanjing, Chen Ming thought of Chen Ding and those sons. This time, Mexico took it. As soon as possible, those sons who have no intention of taking the throne will be sealed out as soon as possible.