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The atmosphere in the Hui'an Palace seemed a little sluggish, except for Wu Feng, who was sitting above, his face was quite normal, and the rest of the people were all gloomy and gloomy, and they were obviously facing trouble, and they did not feel excited and happy at all because of the news of the great victory in the Indean region and the southwest. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

"Let's talk about it, things are coming, and we have to face it, right? Natural disasters [***], which dynasty and which generation, hehe, just call me to catch up, Xiao Tang, do you want to tell me if our Tang Empire has a bit of a bad start in the year?" Half-jokingly wanting to open up the atmosphere, Wu Feng stretched his waist and glanced at everyone.

"Your Majesty laughed, now that the empire is in the middle of the sky, how can we talk about the unfavorable year? It's just that this natural disaster comes too often, and the empire uses troops intensively abroad, and the financial support is inevitably a little difficult, so the minister thinks that in the next step, we may have to repair the water conservancy facilities in various places while providing disaster relief, and the floods in several areas have sounded a warning for us, if we don't pay attention to it, it will really cause a big disaster. ”

Xiao Tang smiled bitterly, his mood has always been mixed, the smooth pacification of the Meili and Indean regions has hardly taken much effort, he has always hoped that the empire can rest and breathe, although he also knows that His Majesty intends to continue to use troops in the southwest, but in the face of the huge drought in the north and the abnormal climate in the Wuhu, Sanjiang, Tiannan, and Burmese counties, the heavy rain has continued for more than ten days, and the flood is fierce, Xiao Tang once hoped to suspend the use of troops in the southwest, but was vetoed by His Majesty the Emperor, and now although the southwest has won a great victory, but the five lakes, Sanjiang and Tiannan areas are already a vast ocean, nearly 10 million people have been displaced, and the north is still drought, many places have not seen a drop of rain for two months, most areas of Yanyun and Beiyuan have no harvest, and may even affect next year's spring ploughing, such a grim situation can not be covered up by a few foreign wars, maybe public opinion can cover up the people who have not suffered disasters, but what about the local governments of the north and south?

The plague began to spread before the floods in Sanjiang, Tiannan, and Burma counties receded, and the plague began to spread in Qindu, Yushan, Jiangchuan, Zhujiang, Nanfeng, Qinzhou, Guining, and Perth, and according to the figures reported by the local government, at least 2,000 people have died of the plague, and this situation has a tendency to continue to spread. Fortunately, no signs of the spread of the plague have been found in the Five Lakes area, otherwise the situation would be unimaginable once it spreads with the density of the population of the Five Lakes.

"Well, Xiao Tang, you don't have to knock on the side, I have already decided to suspend the support of foreign troops, Cui Wenxiu's request for the Hansen Alliance's control of Kustan and Dexin Province and the second phase of the southern part of Meili have been shelved, and now the empire itself is facing such great difficulties, disaster relief and later re-engineering will require a large amount of funds, all parties have to find a way to raise funds for me to solve, other construction will be suspended, military operations will be temporarily canceled, everything will wait for us to survive this hurdle. Wu Feng nodded, "Zhengbin, you talk about the situation in various places first." ”

"Good. The situation of the two northern counties is probably clear to all of you, Beiping, Yanshan, Yunzhong, Yulin, Qinghe, Anyuan, The seven provinces of Pinglu are almost out of harvest, and the remaining three provinces are only three percent of the harvest, the imperial treasury has allocated a lot of funds in the early stage, and the relief is also being carried out in an orderly manner, and the Immigration Department of the Ministry of Economic Development has also carried out some immigration actions, but this is a drop in the bucket, it is difficult to solve the fundamental problem, and now we are facing next year's preparations, the climate is still dry, and next year's spring harvest is worrying, I am afraid that we are prepared for the worst. ”

"The situation in the four southern counties continues to deteriorate, although there is no plague in the Five Lakes area, but because there are many lakes and rivers in this area, the disaster situation is the most serious, the affected people reach 6 million, the disaster relief pressure is quite large, and a large number of materials have been urgently sent to the Five Lakes area, and the Ministry of Finance has allocated the first phase of 60 million imperial gold coin relief funds, especially considering the reconstruction of the homes of the victims after the disaster, it is conceivable that this amount of money is an astronomical amount. The situation in Sanjiang and Tiannan counties is also quite bad, the affected population is about three million, the first batch of relief funds of 30 million imperial gold coins has been allocated, and disaster relief materials are also in the emergency transportation, and now the most difficult problem is that there is a large-scale plague here, if the spread cannot be controlled in time, I am afraid that the entire southern region of the empire will be involved, and the empire will face a huge crisis. The situation in Burma County is slightly better, the main Perth Province has been affected, and the disaster relief fund of 4 million imperial gold coins has been allocated, but the transportation of materials may be somewhat difficult, and now the minister has asked Zhongnan County and Nanhai County to transfer materials from the south to give support. ”

According to the current situation we have, if the situation can be controlled and does not continue to deteriorate, it is estimated that the first and second phases of disaster relief funds and materials will need about 250 million imperial gold coins, and if we take into account the reconstruction of the houses and various infrastructure of the victims after the disaster, it is conservatively estimated that the empire will need to invest 400 million imperial gold coins. ”

Yang Zhengbin's last sentence immediately caused a whisper among the ministers, 650 million imperial gold coins is not a small amount, even if the empire now obtains income from the treasury of the Indean Kingdom, but a large part of that fund is a variety of treasures collected by the royal families of the Indean Kingdom, and the value is probably more than two billion imperial gold coins, but no one can afford this kind of treasure at all, and it is impossible to sell it, which everyone knows.

There are less than 600 million gold that can really be used as a circulating goods, and the empire has already agreed to the request of guaranteeing the private property of the nobles of the Hyderabad, and it is impossible to collect too much in the Indean region, Cui Wenxiu has already opened the military expenditure of 800,000 troops stationed in the Central Continent when he handed over the gold, and he needs to spend 130 million imperial gold coins in just one year, and the expenditure required in the first and second stages of the Indo-Ann War, as well as the Eastern Luzon War and the Merry War, has reached 150 million, and the little gold in the treasury of the Indean Kingdom is only enough to support the military expenses of the garrison for more than four years, which does not include the needs of the war。

And now the construction of the imperial navy is also in full swing, in addition to the construction of the Oriental Navy and the South Sea Navy in an all-round way, His Majesty the Emperor has been ambitious to build the Western Navy based on the coastal areas of Meili and West Indodean, so that the Imperial Navy can bathe the sun in the Baltic Sea and the Aegean Sea at will, it is said that this is the grand wish of His Majesty the Emperor in the era of study tours, on this issue, although many ministers have quite objections, but they are not good to disobey the interest of His Majesty the Emperor, but now the imperial finances have fallen into an embarrassment, and many people consider whether they should be in the emperor[***] cost on the issue of the issue of consideration.

"Zhengbin, this is not a question of whether the empire's finances can be supported, I am asking you, does your Ministry of Economic Development have a detailed disaster relief plan? What should the north do? How did the south arrange it? How do you plan to control the plague?"

Yang Zhengbin also has a hard time to say, Xiao Tang and Tian Yi both asked him to emphasize the financial problems of the empire when talking about disaster relief, so as to lay the foundation for the next step to reduce military spending, Yang Zhengbin also knew that mentioning financial problems at this time would definitely annoy His Majesty, but he also had to obey the requirements of his superiors and colleagues, not to mention that he himself also thought that the empire should first rectify and develop the economy as much as possible before there was no great threat at present, rather than blindly expanding militarily, just like a greedy bear foraging around, but it also needs a strong stomach to digest, so he also expounded his views at this time at an inopportune time。

"Your Majesty, the disaster relief plans in various places have already been arranged and arranged, and the Immigration Department for the resettlement of displaced people has already made a plan, but now the situation has changed slightly, and the Burmese county is not suitable for resettlement of migrants now, and now it is going to Kuiyang and Pamir provinces in North Luzon. As for the plague, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Finance, and the Ministry of Culture, Education and Health have agreed on a plan and have already laid it out, and the Ministry of Finance has allocated 20 million yuan of special funds for the purchase of various preventive and curative drugs, as well as a large number of disinfection drugs and equipment, which are on their way to the epidemic areas, and it is estimated that some areas have received the first batch of drugs and equipment in the past two days. In addition, in order to prevent a possible spring famine next year, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of War Readiness have also contacted and have begun to purchase grain in the Indean region and the northern Luzon region, increasing the empire's grain reserves in case of accidents. Yang Zhengbin replied.

"What is the response of the Ministry of the Interior?" Wu Feng was quite satisfied with Yang Zhengbin's answer, and asked Zhong Wenjing instead.

In addition, the Ministry of the Interior has also implemented martial law measures prohibiting the random movement of people in the disaster and epidemic areas, and the Ministry of the Interior has also mobilized the internal affairs guard to be sent to several areas where the disaster and epidemic are more serious, ready to deal with possible disturbances. Zhong Wenjing was concise and to the point.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, this time when our empire won a great victory in the foreign war, there was an unprecedented drought and flood in our country, but I have both joys and sorrows, but fortunately, now the war has basically ended, and the representatives of Western Samoa and Sikkim are on their way to Yanjing, so the military affairs are temporarily over, and now our minds are all focused on how to minimize the losses caused by the disaster to us, and maintain the vitality of the empire as much as possible, all departments must go all out, and when we survive this difficulty, the future of our empire will be bright！”

(To be continued)