Even though Yang Chen had tried his best to ask for a batch of grain from the big households in the county, the shortage of grain in the city still could not be effectively improved. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info Because with the passage of time, the number of refugees who have taken refuge in the county has been rising, and at the same time, the food in the homes of the people in the city is getting less and less, and the water outside the city has not yet receded, which makes the people of the county who were still self-sufficient also panic.

As a result, the grain in the grain shops that were still open in the county town suddenly became fat in the eyes of all the people, and in just two days, all the grain in those grain shops were sold out.

In the past, the county government only needed to supply refugees with food, but after the fourth day of the third month, some people who were not from very good families began to come to the county government to get food from the food distribution stalls. After the fifth day of the new year, almost the entire county came here to receive free grain, and the queue for receiving grain suddenly went several miles.

And the consequence of this is the sharp consumption of the Yamen's grain stockpile, which I thought would last until Zhao Bangfu came back, and soon less than half of the grain stockpile was left, and it seemed that it could not be consumed for even two or three days.

Seeing that the food was decreasing, Jiang Chong, who was in charge of distributing the food, was so worried that his hair was about to turn white, you must know that he was only forty-five years old. At this moment, his mouth was full of bubbles, and he told Yang Chen about the current difficulties with a sad face: "My lord, I can't go on like this. Otherwise, if we don't wait for Zhao Xiancheng to come back, the grain in our warehouse will be distributed, and the people will only be hungry. ”

In fact, Yang Chen has also had a very bad time in the past two days, not to mention two big dark circles on his face, his eyes are even more bloodshot, and his throat is also dry, which is all caused by strong pressure. Seeing Jiang Chong speak like this, he felt a pain in his brain: "This official knows that things are difficult, but let's make it difficult." The people live on food, and we can't let the people go hungry, right? As long as there is food in the storehouse, we have to feed the people. ”

"My lord, that's not what Xia Guan meant." Jiang Chong hurriedly said: "But if you go on like this, it is not a long-term solution after all." In the opinion of the following officials, can we not distribute food and divide porridge instead? ”

"Huh?" After all, Yang Chen had no experience in this area, and when he heard his suggestion, he was stunned: "Is there any difference between this?" ”

"That's a big difference." As soon as Jiang Chong heard him say this, he knew that this was a sign that the county magistrate did not know how to deal with the victims at all. patiently explained carefully: "If it is decimeter, each person will divide about half a catty every day, so the consumption is very large." But if it is replaced with porridge, because there is a lot of water in it, a person only has three to five taels of grain a day (at this time, the weight is sixteen taels and one catty, half a catty and eight taels, and passers-by press it), which is much less than direct food. In this way, we can hold out for two more days and wait for Zhao Xiancheng to bring the grain. ”

Yang Chen couldn't help but nod at first, feeling that this was indeed a good idea, but then said worriedly: "But in this case, aren't the people going to be hungry?" A bowl of porridge may not be enough to fill people. ”

"My lord, I don't care about that anymore. Compared with running out of food and making people completely hungry, this method of only making people eat half full is already the most advantageous. As long as Zhao Xiancheng can get food from the government and survive this period of time, our problem will naturally be solved. Jiang Chong hurriedly persuaded again.

Yang Chen knew that Jiang Chong must be much more experienced than himself in this kind of matter, and he also believed that Master Jiang, who had abandoned the secret and turned to the light, would not cheat himself in this matter, so he nodded after hesitating for a while: "Then do as you want." Before that, however, it was necessary to make it clear to the people. ”

"Huh?" Jiang Chong had just breathed a sigh of relief, but at this time he showed a look of surprise. In his mind, since the government has taken the idea, the people can just follow it, so that they know what is going on and what to do. But facing Yang Chen's solemn eyes, he didn't dare to disobey.

After fighting and getting along with each other for a while, he already had a clear understanding of Yang Chen. This is a young man with a fairly peaceful personality, but he also has his own ideas and bottom lines. Usually he talks about everything, but once he violates his bottom line and violates his proposition, Yang Chen will definitely not be spared. So even though he felt that Yang Chen was a little strange to do this, Jiang Chong still agreed.

So from the seventh day of the first lunar month, the shed in front of the county government to distribute grain was steaming white gas, and instead of a small bag of white rice, it was replaced by a bowl of steaming white porridge.

Although you don't have to think about it anymore with the porridge, the people are not stupid, and of course they know the difference. Some people were very dissatisfied and raised questions, and Jiang Chong, who had been prepared, ordered someone to loudly publicize the difficulties of the county seat today, which also calmed the hearts of some restless people for a while.

But the problem still exists, especially after eating white porridge for two days, the people feel even more hungry, and suddenly some rumors and contradictions finally broke out.

First of all, there was a rumor among the refugees that the government was only giving them white porridge for the rural people who had taken refuge in the city, and the people in the county town could still get rice. As soon as this statement came out, many refugees were not dissatisfied, the so-called people do not suffer from widowhood but suffer from inequality, the same is the people of Zhuji County, why should we be hungry?

Fortunately, after discovering this sign, the government has come forward to clarify, saying that the government treats all the people equally, whether it is the original county residents or those who have avoided entering the city, they are all the same, and they can only distribute white porridge. For this reason, Yang Chen also set an example, and he also stayed in front of the soup kitchen, and only ate two bowls of porridge a day like everyone else.

Seeing that the county magistrates did this, and the refugees did see that the people of the county town had brought bowls to receive porridge like themselves, this resentment finally dissipated.

But before Yang Chen and the others had time to breathe, new rumors were born again. This time, it was spread among the people of the county: if it weren't for these refugees from all over the country pouring into the county town and robbing them of the food that originally belonged to them, they wouldn't be hungry at all!

People are like this, when they have enough food and clothing, they may be able to be kind to others and be happy to share with others, but once they can't even achieve the most basic survival guarantee, their minds are completely different. Now, when the people of the county heard this, they felt the same way, and immediately developed a strong hostility towards those refugees who lived near their homes. In addition, some people deliberately combined the previous rumors with this, saying that those refugees were not grateful when they had food, and they actually picked their noses and eyes at the people in the city, which was really a group of white-eyed wolves.

These statements soon became the consensus of all the original county people, and this also made the hostility between the county people and the refugees deeper and deeper.

The continuous accumulation of such hostile emotions has led to constant friction and quarrels between the people on both sides, and many people have even started to do things because of a trivial matter. If it weren't for the fact that the people in the county town don't have much strength to fight because they can't eat enough, I'm afraid that this contradiction will be even deeper.

But even so, it also made the county government feel a headache. After all, there is no good hand in fighting, and if there is a case in which one party injures or even kills the other party, the matter will be even more difficult to deal with. Therefore, in the past few days, in addition to maintaining order in the soup kitchen, the county government has put more energy into stopping the struggle between the original residents of the county and the people in the countryside. In just two days, they had stopped the fight between the five groups of people, but as the resentment between the two sides became deeper and deeper, the disputes and frictions became more and more frequent, which made Yang Chen, the county commander, feel that the burden on his shoulders was a little heavier.

On the afternoon of the 12th, on an empty street in the east of the city, two groups of young people with more than 20 people each were facing each other. Among these people, many of them still carry some wooden sticks or firewood knives in their hands, and they look like they are desperate to fight each other at any time.

Originally, this side used to be a city-level county seat, but as soon as the flood came, the city-level here naturally couldn't be opened, and then these two groups of people poked here, and the ordinary people didn't even rush to get close, and they walked around.

But around the corner not far from here, there are still more than a dozen men hidden, and they are the catchers of the county government. Seeing that the two groups of people had begun to scold after confronting each other for a long time, and seeing that they were about to start, Shou Laosi couldn't help but glance at Yang Zhen beside him: "Erlang, aren't we going up yet?" If this really starts out, if there are any casualties, we will have to bear the blame. ”

It turned out that just before these two groups of people clashed and chose to fight in the east of the city, the county government had already received the news. As a county commander, Yang Chen naturally would not take such a big matter lightly, and hurriedly sent his subordinates to stop it. Unexpectedly, when he arrived here, seeing that the two sides were still talking, Yang Zhen asked everyone to hide for the time being and wait for the changes.

Yang Zhen's eyes stared at that side for a moment, and he replied, "Wait." At this time, if we pass, this will naturally not be able to fight, but the problem is still not solved, and one day things will get bigger and bigger. ”

"So you mean, just let them fight this one?"

"No!" Yang Zhen shook his head categorically: "Conflict does not solve the problem, it only makes the problem worse." What we need to solve is to dig out those who instigated this dispute, so as to prevent the problem from getting worse. ”

"Huh?" When everyone heard him say this, they were all stunned, and those who were clever understood the meaning, but those who were dull were a little confused.

At this time, Cai Yingyang's words made their attention focus back on the street: "Look, they really fought!" ”