The official was still hesitant, Zhang Lu said: "The matter is urgent. I hope the doctor will report back soon. After today, the food from the east of the river will not arrive!"
Seeing Zhang Lu's categorical statement, Dr. Gong didn't know what kind of news Zheng Anping had received last night and what kind of instructions he had received, so he felt suspicious. But the five hundred stones of grain every day were not transported from the camp, but by Pi Shi. If Zhang Lu said he wouldn't do it, then he really couldn't do it. In desperation, he had no choice but to make arrangements, leave everyone, and cross the river to Fushi to report to the county governor.
After the official left, Zhang Lu found Zheng Anping again and had a secret discussion with him; he also found Chen Si and Mang Wei and had a discussion with him. Then, Zhang Lu asked Zheng Anping to return to Puban to recuperate and visit the pregnant woman.
The next day, Zheng Anping came back and brought a recruitment list made by Pu Ling and set it up on the construction site. Zhang Lu called the officials at all levels and ordered the officials to announce to the soldiers below. He also announced that all those who are willing to immigrate will be reported by doctors at all levels and summarized here.
From that day on, the recruitment list was erected on the construction site, and moved forward step by step as the construction site moved forward. After staying at the camp, Mang Wei went down to each camp and asked if anyone had signed up to immigrate. He also took the opportunity to chat with the soldiers and verbally promised some preferential policies: "Hedong guards pity the disaster in Shangjun, and those who have done meritorious service will be rewarded." Those who move to the east of the river can return home immediately, and they can move home temporarily to eat."
One after another, doctors reported soldiers who were willing to immigrate. Zhang Lu immediately fought against the fried millet and wrote the Jiefu. The reason written in the Jiefu was "Those who have meritorious service will move their families to the east of the river to eat." They didn't have to work that day, so they returned to the camp to prepare their luggage and eat as usual. The next day, they were gathered together and went to Puban to cross the river and go home together to pick up their families.
In this way, people were crossing the river from Puban every day, and the number was increasing. After ten days, more than a thousand people had left.
After the official came back, he reported to Zhang Lu that the governor of Shangjun agreed to suspend the transportation of grain to Shangjun and make up for the remaining grain after the road construction was completed. Zhang Lu showed him the recruitment list and told him that more than a thousand people had returned home to immigrate.
The Duke was shocked and said hurriedly: "This matter is not the intention of the county governor, so An De acted recklessly!"
Zhang Lu said: "This order has been issued for a long time, but the counties have done nothing. Zheng Cheng went to Xianyang to ask for the order. He was punished for being unable to do the work and was flogged twenty times."
Doctor Gong thought for a while, and vaguely remembered that Zheng Anping seemed to be acting strangely when he came back, and was then taken to a dark place. Judging from his actions, it seems that he has been beaten. Could it be that Zheng Anping came back in a hurry just to implement the immigration to Hedong? The doctor thought uneasily. If so, it would be a bit troublesome for Zhang Lu to set his sights on the tens of thousands of people in Shangjun. There are still hundreds of thousands of families behind them. If they leave, Shangjun will be empty.
Just when he was worried, he heard Zhang Lu say the words he least wanted to hear: "I have erected the list at the entrance and ordered the officials to spread it widely, and be sure to keep it in the east of the river! If you don't keep it, the king will When the matter is over, send them all!"
The disaster situation in Shang County shows no sign of easing, and this year's harvest is likely to be a failure. In view of this, the arrogant Shang County Sheriff bowed his head and allowed Hedong not to transport food. He was about to argue, but Zhang Lu's next words made him hesitate again: "I heard that there was a serious disaster in Shangjun and the people were in trouble. Anyone who wants to move is ordered to live in the east of the river. Don't wait for his orders: if you want to live for the people, also."
The public official knew the seriousness of the disaster. Not to mention that Qin Fa did not allow disaster relief, even if the barn door was opened to provide relief, there would not be enough food. There are hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the county, and it is estimated that all the stocks can be eaten up in a month; even if they support the strong men serving in the county, the burden will be heavy. Moreover, there is a drought in Shangjun. Not only is there no food, but all kinds of plants are not growing well. It is difficult to dig wild vegetables. If there were no food supplies, many people would probably starve to death, which would be a big stain on the governor's scheme.
If immigrants immigrate to Hedong... Doctor Gong suddenly had an inspiration: If support for immigrating to Hedong is included in the above plan, then there will be a reason for the decrease in the population of Shangjun, and there will be no need for all of them to be reported as starving to death due to disasters.
Thinking of this, the official said to Zhang Lu: "Thousands of households were moved to the east of Hedong, and Shangjun moved thousands of households. I was afraid that when Hedong was first built, there was insufficient food and fodder, and all the industries were unprepared, so I didn't dare to move them all. Now Hedong is doing it myself, and Shangjun dares to help. Yes! Please tell Yu Shou to help him."
Zhang Lu said: "The official has just returned, so how can we leave again? The civilian army may return or not, and the number of camps may be lacking. We still need the official to make good arrangements and not to waste his work."
When the official heard this, he had no choice but to respond: "Here you go!"
In the following days, hundreds of people still left every day. Then the first family to migrate came back by boat. At this time, the road construction army had also reached Puban County. Pu Ling had received guidance from Pi Wan and settled the family relatively smoothly: he found a place with abundant water and grass, and asked the migrant workers building the road to help build a straw shed for temporary residence; the migrant workers went to work as usual and received food and family. Let’s live together with wild vegetables – at least there are still wild vegetables to be dug around! Seeing the tragic situation of this family, everyone in the village shed tears and sighed. The man said: "At the beginning of the day, there is still grass left to dig, but if it is too late, it may not be safe!"
The arrival of this family caused huge waves. Almost all the migrant workers who saw this situation that day applied to go home to pick up their families. Mang Wei said: "If there are too many people, I'm afraid there won't be enough fried millet."
This group of people said: "How can we save people from fire and water? How can we fry millet?" Mang Lai did not have time to register his name, so he only registered "XX person under a certain doctor", and the festival talisman was only issued to the countryside "XX person who served in the east of the river in a certain area has meritorious service" Move your family to the east of the river to eat.”
As families arrived one after another, the seriousness of the disaster in Shangjun quickly spread among the migrant workers. Driven by a herd mentality, almost everyone could not wait to take their family members out, as if they did not do so, they would starve. die. At first, the official wanted to stand by and watch, but when he saw that almost the entire camp was asking to leave, he finally became anxious and went to Zhang Lu and said, "If this is the case, there will be no one left in our village!"
Zhang Lu comforted him and said: "If the doctor had gone out to the east of the river during the first disaster, how could his people have been waiting to die like this? If you look at the four thousand households of the Pi family, how many of them would have died of starvation, even though they were all old and weak? He died of illness."
Because there were too many people leaving, it was impossible to register, nor to issue festival signs on time, and there were not enough ships, so the number of people was suppressed: only 500 people were allowed per day, and the work of road construction continued.
Five hundred people leave every day, but only a few people come every day. Most of them have long journeys or encounter other obstacles, making it difficult to come back for a while.
Pu Banai went all out to stir up millet, and almost all women who knew how to stir up millet were recruited, including newly arrived women from families who were still capable of working. Wei County no longer transports grain here. Zhang Lu borrowed the salt merchant's method and asked merchants from four old counties to transport grain here and pay with salt. Generally speaking, one stone of salt can buy five stones of millet - in Jie County, one stone of salt cannot even buy one stone of millet.
The first batch of people from Shangjun who entered Pishi were mostly old and weak. Pi Wan asked some of them, led by Pishi's merchants, to lead their animals to transport salt and grain. The scope of their business was not limited to Hedong. They also entered Fen. Swim in the territory of South Korea. The grain purchased is private grain storage and does not affect the government's inventory. Pi Wan also bought a large number of young animals and gave them to these immigrant households to raise. There were very few of these immigrants doing business or animal husbandry, so Pi Wan could only let officials, merchants and Yu people take them with them in the name of serving.
Since the Pishi-Fenyin line is currently in a critical position, and a large number of people have to cross the river back to Shangjun every day, Zhang Lu decided to build a road along the Yellow River through the Fenyin-Puban line first, so as to facilitate access to Pishi and Fenyin. The food provided was convenient for migrant workers to cross the river and return home.
It took twenty days to build the road from Puban to Fenyin. At this time, more and more families gathered in Xia Yangjin to cross the river. Zhang Lu decisively stopped building the road and mobilized all the boats to transport his family members across the river. Others set up simple huts near the road to accommodate these people. Although due to the large number of households, every ten households could only share one pot of gruel after crossing the river, but everyone's face showed a sense of joy of surviving the disaster. Zhang Lu and Dr. Gong led Zheng Anping and others past the fires one by one, talked to them one by one, comforted them, and told them that they had been hungry for many days and could not eat enough. They could only drink some porridge, especially Parents must control children and not allow them to eat violently. Everyone climbed down and kowtowed, saying some words of gratitude. Zhang Lu pointed at the Duke and said, "This is the official of your county. If you are not the same person, how could you get to this point?" These people kowtowed to the Duke together. The doctor thought to himself, I have taken the blame!
From Puban to Pishi via Fenyin, it is more than 200 miles along the bank of the Yellow River. In just ten days, tens of thousands of thatched huts have been built densely to temporarily accommodate immigrants from Shangjun. During these ten days, another five thousand people crossed the Yellow River and went to Shangjun to pick up their families. Zhang Lu asked the magistrates of the three counties to quickly measure the land and resettle the immigrants. Pi Wan was responsible for the resettlement work. He led the remaining more than 3,000 migrant workers to continue building roads. ——Those who have family members who go to the east of Hedong are exempted from labor service and can be organized into townships according to the arrangements of each county. They can live in selected places; they can cultivate wasteland, raise livestock, or sell goods; women can work in various counties, such as pounding, weaving, or weaving. Either frying millet or picking it. Suddenly there were so many people, and the three counties along the river immediately became prosperous.
With only more than 3,000 migrant workers left, road construction was relatively slow. They could not build more than two miles in a day. From Puban to Yishi, it was more than 150 miles up the Su River. Zhang Lu rejected the request of the public official to recruit migrant workers from Shangjun, and insisted that they settle down in Hedong first, as if building roads was not his main business.
A few days later, among the migrant workers who returned, some of their families had starved to death in the city or on the road. The further we go, the more tragedies happen. The heartbreaking pain of those who came later was comforted by the straw huts and warm millet porridge built by those who came first. The surrounding families are all immigrants from Shangjun. Whether they know each other or not, everyone has similar pain and can comfort each other. Seeing that the earlier immigrants had gathered their families into towns and villages, and distributed farmland - even though it was barren, everyone was filled with hope.
Doctor Gong occasionally comes here to visit everyone, but he understands that the common experience has united these people into a new group of people, and they have a sense of belonging to Hedong, and they will never go back to Shangjun again.
