The Xiaoice period, as the name suggests, is a colder period, but warmer than the real ice age, so it is called the Xiaoice period, generally speaking, the Xiaoice period mainly refers to the relatively cold period from the fifteenth century to the nineteenth century in history, unfortunately, the Zhengde period in which Zhou Zhong is located happens to be in the Xiaoice period.

In fact, when Zhou Zhong just crossed, he already felt the power of the Xiaoice River period, and in later life, he originally lived in Shanghai, and naturally knew the local climate of Shanghai very well, and it rarely froze in winter, and the next snow could be on the news. But in this land of the Ming Dynasty, the winter is extremely cold, the ice of the pond can allow people to walk on it at will, and it is not easy to smash it even with a sledgehammer, if you sleep at night without covering two layers of quilts, you will be frozen awake in the middle of the night, and snow is a common thing.

Although the Xiaoice period will not reach its peak until the seventeenth century, Daming has been greatly affected, domestic disasters have occurred frequently, grain production has been greatly reduced, especially in those higher latitude areas in the north, the climate is even more abnormal, the reduction of precipitation leads to drought and reduced grain production, coupled with the cold weather in winter, so that countless people leave their homes every year and embark on the road of escape in order to survive.

From the beginning of the year to the end of autumn, there was almost no rain, the rivers and wells dried up, and the crops in the fields were not harvested. In addition, this year's winter came very early, just in September, the north was already frozen for thousands of miles, in this situation of hunger and cold, the victims in the area of Andongwei had to pack up the only little belongings at home, dragged their families to flee to the south.

Songjiang Prefecture is administratively part of Nanzhili, which is close to Shandong, so these victims went all the way south and soon entered the territory of Nanzhili. Although Songjiang Prefecture is a small place, it is a famous land of fish and rice, and there is a world-famous Songjiang cloth, which makes the people here relatively rich, and Songjiang is located directly south of Andongwei, so at least half of the victims flocked to Songjiang Prefecture.

"Young master, these fleeing victims are also helpless, even the bark of the tree has been gnawed clean in the hometown, and even heard that there are people eating people, in order to break a way for themselves and their families to live, they walked on a pair of legs for three months, and finally came to us, but the government is also afraid that these victims will make trouble when they come in, so they found that after the victims entered the city, they immediately closed the city gate, and now most of the victims are blocked out of the city, just now the family of three is lucky, and they can rush to the city before the city gate is closed, Find a sheltered place to rest tonight, you shouldn't freeze to death! Steward Xu sighed and explained the situation of the victims he had just encountered to Zhou Chong.

Zhou Chong's heart was also gloomy after hearing this, from the literature and movies of later generations, he also saw a lot of situations about escaping famine, knowing the tragic situation of the people fleeing the famine, whenever the famine occurred, these victims fled their hometowns with their families, and then embarked on an unknown journey, a considerable number of people died on the road, and many people sold their sons and daughters, and even sold themselves as slaves and maids, and there was no freedom at all in their lives.

Thinking of this, Zhou Chong had to sigh secretly in his heart, if their Zhou family did not fall, they could organize food to help the victims outside the city, although it is impossible for all the victims to have a full meal, but it can also allow many victims to eat a mouthful of life-saving food, maybe many victims can survive, but unfortunately now their own family is still barely maintaining, it really can't help, now it can only depend on how the government will treat these victims?

Pushing the cart home, and then unloading the briquettes into the new kitchen of the inner house with the help of Wu Shan, because of the incident of the disaster victims on the road, Zhou Chong's mood was a little heavy, and he also seemed a little absent-minded when eating.

"Big brother, what's wrong with you, do you have something on your mind?" Bang'er was the most delicate, and soon discovered Zhou Chong's abnormality, and couldn't help but ask with concern.

"The eldest lady doesn't know, just now on the way back, we met the victims fleeing from Shandong, the young master was compassionate, seeing them shivering in the cold wind, my heart was very unbearable, this is not a good taste!" Before Zhou Chong could answer, Steward Xu next to him rushed to put gold on Zhou Chong's face.

Steward Xu said that Zhou Chong's compassion is really a bit too much, all kinds of experiences in the previous life made Zhou Chong taste the warmth and coldness of human feelings, and he has long learned to treat everything around him with reason, although Zhou Chong is very sympathetic to those disaster victims, but he also knows that his current strength is still too weak, and he can't help at all, let alone be sad because he can't help, but he just thinks of some things in the future life.

About the Xiaoice River period, Zhou Zhong also knows something, from the beginning of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, has been affected by the Xiaoice River period, not only domestic disasters are frequent, and the climate of the northern grassland is extremely cold, the grassland people are forced to survive, often go south to loot, so that the border trouble in the north of the Ming Dynasty continues, consuming a lot of national strength.

Coupled with the mistakes of domestic policies, a large amount of tax revenue was lost, corrupt officials and corrupt officials were rampant, and finally died at the hands of pigtailed children, and the dignified China was ruled by foreign races for more than 200 years, and the national civilization of thousands of years has made great strides backwards, and later it was opened by Western countries with opium and artillery, and the land of China once again fell into new darkness.

Thinking of the tragic history of later generations, Zhou Chong's reason told him that he was just a small person, and he was powerless to change the history of later generations, but for some reason, Zhou Chong always felt a little uncomfortable in his heart, and there seemed to be a faint voice in his heart telling him that since he could travel through, maybe he should do something for the people of later generations? But how? Where do you start? Zhou Zhong didn't have the slightest clue, he was worried about these problems when he was eating just now.

"What, are there any more victims outside the city?" When Aunt Wang heard Steward Xu's words, she suddenly asked with an eager face.

Seeing that Aunt Wang cared so much, Steward Xu remembered some things from the past, and said with a wry smile: "Aunt Wang, the old slave knows that you are a bodhisattva, but you have also seen the situation at home, and we are really powerless to deal with the victims outside the city!" ”

Aunt Wang is a person who believes in Buddhism, usually says, 'save a life, win the seven-level floating slaughter', and is also particularly concerned about doing good deeds, when Zhou Chong's father Zhou Hai was alive, he also supported her very much, for example, if the disaster victims come, the Zhou family will set up a soup kitchen shed outside the city to help the victims, and Aunt Wang is generally responsible for it herself, so now when she hears that the victims are coming outside the city, she will be so concerned.

Aunt Wang was only kind-hearted for a while, and soon thought of the situation at home, only to see her sigh and say: "Alas, in this cold day, I don't know how many victims outside the road will be frozen to death, I just hope that the government can be kind and distribute some food and clothes to the victims, so that they can survive this winter!" ”

"Mother, don't worry, Lord Xu is honest and honest, he is a rare good official, every time he encounters a famine over the years, he will organize disaster relief for large households in the city, I believe he will not sit idly by this time, and the victims outside the city will soon be properly resettled!" Bang'er knows her mother's temperament best, and she also opened her mouth to comfort at the moment.

Zhou Zhong heard Xu Shenzhong's father mentioned in Bang'er's words, and he couldn't help but think of the evaluation of the prefect from Songjiang Mansion.

Speaking of the low income of officials in the Ming Dynasty, it can almost be said that there is no one before and no one after them, and these are fixed dead when Zhu Yuanzhang was born, no matter how the prices of later generations rise, the officials' income is just like that, so if all the officials only rely on the money to live, I am afraid that many people will really starve to death.

For example, Hai Rui, the model Qing official decades later, except for his own money, cutting two catties of meat for his mother's birthday became news, and even his boss was surprised.

However, Hai Rui's kind of people are a minority after all, most of the Ming Dynasty officials are mortals, they have worked hard for more than ten years to be admitted to the imperial examination as officials, just want to live a better life, so many people can't bear the meager salary, and they began to embark on a crooked path. Maybe at the beginning, these people just wanted to use their positions to make some money to improve their lives, but corruption is similar to drug abuse, as long as people's greed is opened, no matter how much money they can't fill.

It is precisely because of the above situation, coupled with the lack of a regulatory system, that the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty was rampant, and the means of officials to make money emerged in an endless stream, such as fire consumption and drenching the tip and kicking, etc., which have almost become the practice of officialdom, and there are various filial piety during the New Year's holidays. Even at the end of the year, if the newly appointed official does not accept the money, he may not be able to sit in his position at all, because neither his colleagues, subordinates, nor superiors can tolerate the appearance of an outlier around him.

As soon as the atmosphere in the officialdom is formed, it is very difficult to change it, and the increase in these gray incomes has made many officials very open to accepting bribes, and this has also opened the door for bribery and bribery. It can even be said that there is almost no one in the officialdom of the Ming Dynasty who is not greedy, and the difference is only a matter of being greedy for more and less. Moreover, the influence of this corrupt atmosphere in the Ming Dynasty was very far-reaching, and the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China and beyond in later generations also inherited this atmosphere in the officialdom.

Xu Shenzhong's father's name is Xu Guan, and he is also a relatively good official, he is more self-disciplined, and he also takes the gray income in the officialdom, but he will not take the initiative to reach out. And he is also a more accomplished person, in the past few years when he was in power, he has done a lot of practical things for Songjiang Mansion, so this Xu Governor's reputation in Songjiang is very good, which is also one of the reasons why Zhou Zhong is willing to make friends with Xu Shenzhong today. It's just that now that the victims are besieging the city, I don't know what this Xu Governor will do?