Chapter 454 Refugee Migration
late July.

Personnel from the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple arrived in Dongyang Prefecture.

That day, they took Ning Dongsheng under control.

Ning Dongsheng, who had been living in fear for half a month, told everything without being interrogated.

It includes how Zhao Yunxing colluded with salt merchants and grain merchants, how he planned to raise grain prices, which officials were involved, and which merchants were connected with it.

He spoke so frankly, and his words were even clearer than the confession Ding Qiu had obtained.

However, he was a little vague about Zhao Yunxing's plan to incite the refugees to riot. After all, this was a crime that Ding Qiu had fabricated for them.

However, he did not dare to change his confession. After being interrogated by officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple, he could only say that it was all arranged by Zhao Yunxing and he did not know the whole story.

Originally this story was false, but after officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple investigated, they found that it was not entirely false.

Because they did find out that someone was planning to incite the people to rebel and take the opportunity to embezzle the relief grain allocated by the court.

And it wasn't just one person. The prefect of Guangning Prefecture and the prefect of Fuzhou also had such an idea and took action to achieve it.

In addition, there was no evidence that Zhao Yunxing was guilty of his death, so the blame was put on Zhao Yunxing.

end of July.

Luo Ren, Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue and Right Deputy Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, arrived at Dongyang Prefecture with the first batch of money and grain to start disaster relief work.

It was at this time that drought began to break out in Pingyuan.

With no water or food available, a large number of people had to leave their homes and look for ways to survive.

For a moment, a large number of people with ragged clothes and chapped lips appeared on the official road and moved towards the south.

For the people affected by the disaster, their first destination for escape was not the bitterly cold mountain towns, but Jizhou and Shanhe Province in the south.

This is also the reason why Yang Zhengshan is not prepared to accept all refugees.

Tens of thousands of people began to flee, and wherever they went they were like a swarm of locusts, eating almost everything they could find.

What is even more terrifying is that corpses can be seen everywhere on the withered and cracked land. A hell-like scene is gradually unfolding before the world.

Inside the city of Dongyang Prefecture, Luo Ren stood in the lobby of the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office, looking at the officials in front of him with a sullen face.

"The imperial decree was issued ten days ago. Why didn't you open the granaries and release the grain?"

Pingyuan is not yet at the end of its rope. Most of the people can still get some water and have some food stored.

But the problem was that as soon as Luo Ren arrived in Dongyang Prefecture, he found that tens of thousands of refugees were gathering together and fleeing south.

He had just taken office as the disaster relief governor, and this kind of thing happened. How could he explain it to the court?

The key point is that Dongyang Prefecture is now fully capable of stopping these refugees, but the officials of Dongyang Prefecture allowed the refugees to pass.

"Sir, it's not that we don't want to provide disaster relief, we just really have no power to do so!"

"Now many wells in the city have dried up, and the people in the city are already in a panic. If we open the granaries and release grain at this time, if the victims flood into the city, there may be chaos in the city!"

"Besides, the prefect was arrested by the Ministry of Justice two days ago. I really can't make the decision!"

Bai Shutang, the Tongzhi of Dongyang Prefecture, said with a bitter face.

Bai Shutang felt so miserable!
At this juncture, his immediate superior was arrested, so he, as a deputy official, had to take over. However, he was not a prefect after all, and could not handle the affairs of the main city.

Besides, there are many government offices in Dongyang Prefecture, and the officials from the Provincial Administration Commissioner's Office and the Censorate don't have a say, so how can a Tongzhi like him stand out?
Luo Ren rubbed his eyebrows with a headache.

The situation in Pingyuan far exceeded his expectations.

The Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple arrested a large number of officials, which had a great impact on disaster relief.

"Go and invite Lord Lu from the Ministry of Justice over!"

The Ministry of Justice and the Dali Temple can no longer be allowed to arrest people. If they continue to arrest people, he will have no one to use.

Although these corrupt officials are annoying, he must ensure that government offices at all levels can operate normally at this time, otherwise it will be impossible to provide relief to the victims.

But before the officials from the Ministry of Justice came over, Luo Ren's followers reported outside the lobby: "Sir, Song Ying, the governor of Chongshan Town, is outside the door asking to see you!"

"The Governor of Chongshan Town!" Luo Ren was stunned.

Why did the governor of Chongshan Town come to Dongyang Prefecture instead of staying in Chongshan Pass?

Moreover, as the governor, he has no control over Chongshan Town!
"Please come in!" Luo Ren thought about it and decided to meet Song Ying first.

A moment later, Song Ying was invited into the hall. He glanced at the officials in the hall, then bowed to Luo Ren and said, "Your humble servant Song Ying greets the Governor!"

"Yeah!" Luo Ren was in no mood to be polite with him, so he asked directly, "What are you doing here?"

Song Ying took out an official document from his bosom and said, "Governor, this is the refugee recruitment agreement signed by Jing'an Hou, the general of Chongshan Town, and Mr. Pang, the governor of Chongshan Town!"

He handed the document to Luo Ren, took out another document and said, "This is the old letter from the cabinet for the resettlement of refugees in Chongshan Town."

Both Zhaohe and Gudie are a type of official document. Zhaohe is mainly used for communication between civil and military offices that are not affiliated with each other, while Gudie is mostly used for higher-level offices to notify and order lower-level offices.

Naturally, it was not something that Yang Zhengshan and Pang Tang could decide on their own to relocate millions of people.

It had to be approved by Emperor Yanping and the cabinet, so there was this old letter issued by the cabinet.

Luo Ren opened the two documents and looked at the contents. He was not surprised and just asked, "Are you going to relocate the people now?"

It was common knowledge in the court that Chongshan Town was preparing to resettle refugees from Liaodong. After all, Emperor Yanping had previously allocated one million taels of silver to Chongshan Town. Even if this one million taels of silver was only Emperor Yanping's private money, he had to give an explanation to all the officials in the court.

"Well, we plan to accept a small group of refugees for resettlement first." Song Ying said with a smile.

“How many do you plan to take?”

"Thirty to fifty thousand!"

Luo Ren's eyes lit up. There were about 40,000 to 50,000 refugees gathered on the official road south of Dongyang City. If these refugees could be relocated to Chongshan Town, it would help him solve a big problem.

"What do you need us to do?"

"We have set up a refugee reception point on the official road south of Chongshan Town. As soon as the refugees arrive at the reception point, we will distribute rations and water to them and immediately send them to the resettlement point in the north!"

"In order to avoid unnecessary trouble, I hope that colleagues from Pingyuan and Liaoyuan can escort the refugees to Chongshan Town!" "Before arriving at the reception point, the refugees will be the responsibility of colleagues from the two provinces. After arriving at the reception point, the refugees will be our responsibility!"

Song Ying briefly described the refugee migration process.

Luo Ren nodded. He naturally had no objection to such an arrangement.

As long as the refugees are sent to the reception point in Chongshan Town, it will be equivalent to letting Pingyuan and Liaoyuan provinces get rid of a huge burden.

"I understand. I will arrange for officials to escort the refugees to Chongshan Town as soon as possible!"

Afterwards, Song Ying discussed some details in detail with the staff and officials around Luo Ren.

In order to get rid of the refugees on the official road as soon as possible, Luo Ren urged the officials of the provincial government to start driving the refugees northward the next day.

That’s right, drive away!
Although there is some persuasion in it, in fact it is just driving away.

A group of soldiers, holding weapons in one hand and distributing relief food in the other, forced the refugees to move north to Chongshan Town.

There is no other way around this. Under the current circumstances, it is almost impossible to guide the refugees to move to Chongshan Town on their own initiative.

Because in the eyes of most people, Chongshan Town is a bitter and cold place.

Chongshan Town is colder and poorer than Liaodong, and wars often break out there.

Since the people have migrated once, they naturally want to move to a place that is more suitable for living.

Obviously, Chongshan Town is not a suitable place to live in their eyes.

However, this was only a temporary measure. While Dongyang Prefecture was driving the refugees to Chongshan Town, Pang Tang also arranged a large number of runners and clerks from the Chongshan Town Governor's Office to go to the worst-hit areas to publicize Chongshan Town's policy on refugee resettlement.

Chongshan Town’s refugee resettlement policy includes three aspects.

First, in terms of supplies, after the refugees arrive at the resettlement site, they will be given three months' worth of food rations as well as daily necessities such as salt and cotton cloth according to the population size.

Together with the houses that have already been built, the refugees' problems of food, clothing and housing can be solved in a short period of time.

After that, food and salt will be distributed once a month to ensure the basic living needs of the refugees, and the distribution will continue until August next year.

Simply put, Chongshan Town has to support these refugees for nearly a year.

The second is wasteland reclamation. After the refugees moved to Chongshan Town, each household could get 30 to 100 acres of wasteland according to the population. The first two years of wasteland reclamation were tax-free, and from the third to the fifth year only general grain tax had to be paid.

Reclaiming wasteland takes time and may even delay next year's spring plowing season, but as long as there is a piece of wasteland, the refugees will not end up with nothing next year.

At the same time, in order to reclaim wasteland, Chongshan Town would also distribute agricultural tools and seeds, and even allocate a few oxen to each village.

As for the third aspect, it is the household registration policy, that is, refugees who are willing to become military households can be incorporated into the existing garrisons in Chongshan Town, where they can get more supplies, and young and strong people can immediately join the army and receive food and wages.

There was actually a huge shortage of military households in the various garrisons in Chongshan Town. Some garrisons of a thousand households and a hundred households had less than half of the full complement of military households.

In addition, last year Yang Zhengshan also transferred a group of military households from many garrisons to form the Black Cloud Guard, which made the shortage of garrisons in Chongshan Town even more serious.

In the future, Yang Zhengshan also plans to set up a few new guard posts.

Just around the Black Cloud Mountain, Yang Zhengshan planned to set up five guards in front, behind, left, right and center of the Black Cloud.

In addition to Heiyun Mountain, Yang Zhengshan also plans to set up some garrisons and garrisons in the northern area close to the Wulianghu tribe, but this is a matter for the future.

In the short term, Yang Zhengshan only planned to set up the Black Cloud Five Guards.

For the refugees, being a military household is definitely better than being a farming household. If it weren’t for a major disaster, no one would be willing to become a military household.

Therefore, in order to attract refugees to become military households voluntarily, Yang Zhengshan could only make some concessions in resettlement policies.

In fact, the most attractive of these three aspects for refugees are wasteland reclamation, allocation of wasteland, two years of tax exemption, and three and a half years of tax. Such policies are still very tempting to refugees.

Especially those tenants who have no land, they dream of having a piece of land of their own.

Therefore, after the officials and runners of Chongshan Town made the announcement, many tenants were immediately interested.

When the tenants, who were already penniless, heard about the policy in Chongshan Town, many of them chose to move to Chongshan with their families.

At one time, a large number of refugees poured into Chongshan Town.

The refugee reception point set up by Chongshan Town on the official road was also busy.

A long row of wooden sheds had already been set up on both sides of the official road outside Zhanghe County on the east road of Chongshan Town. Refugees in ragged clothes walked along the official road with difficulty. A large number of officials and soldiers were maintaining order on the official road.

"Here, here, don't run around!"

"I'm talking about you. Behave yourself. If you dare to run around again, don't blame me for being ruthless!"

"Whose child is that? How could you just leave him on the ground?"

"My mother fainted, who can save her?"

"Doctor, where's the doctor? Go and ask the doctor to come over and take a look!"

The entire refugee reception center was noisier than a vegetable market. The officers and soldiers kept yelling, and the doctors were busy treating sick refugees.

Some refugees starved to death on the way before they reached Chongshan Town, while many others were already exhausted and hanging on by their last breath when they arrived at Chongshan Town.

But there were more skinny refugees, looking listless and lifeless, waiting for the officials' arrangements.

The scene was both noisy and compassionate.

Da da da~~
A sound of horse hooves came from the north, and a cavalry group galloped over from Zhanghe County.

After arriving at the receiving point, the cavalrymen stopped one after another.

Zhang Chengzhi rode on horseback, looking at the messy scene, frowning slightly.

Next to him, the magistrate of Zhanghe County looked a little bitter.

The situation was more troublesome than he had expected. The mere presence of several thousand refugees in Zhanghe County made him feel overwhelmed.

They have no shortage of water, food and other supplies. A large amount of food was delivered to them half a month ago.

What really troubled him was the shortage of manpower. Even though he had tried his best to urge the officials to do their work, the speed of accepting refugees was still very slow.

(End of this chapter)