Pingmahang gradually emerged spontaneously in the upstream and downstream trade. There is no official teeth from the Ministry of Household Affairs, so it does not have monopoly privileges. The competition among various stores is fierce, so they need to win the support of "water customers", merchants. Therefore, in the process of buying and selling on behalf of customers, they often need to advance payment, which is a business that requires considerable capital.
Most of the businessmen of the local Migu Chamber of Commerce also came from Pingma Industry. They have been trading in the middle for many years and are very familiar with upstream and downstream customers. After accumulating more funds, they specialize in one line. However, most of these rice merchants still maintain their old habits in their transactions. They wait for grain "water customers" from Guangxi to come to their door. After stocking up, they wait for the "water customers" from Guangdong to buy. However, they make a profit. What you get is the price difference instead of the commission.
Before entering the city, Xie Erren had roughly read the booklet "Overview of Wuzhou" compiled by the Foreign Intelligence Service. This booklet has a detailed introduction to Wuzhou's geography, humanities, commerce, customs, people's livelihood, society and "key figures", allowing the cadres in the receiving city to have a general understanding of the recipients.
Thanks to this booklet, he knew the details of the "village sages" attending the meeting very clearly, including family members, reputation, general economic status, etc. In general, the "village sages" in Wuzhou are not much different from those in other places. Except for a few who have excellent reputations and those who have extremely bad reputations, most people are roughly at the level of doing good as long as they do not harm their own interests: When disaster strikes, they will donate money and rice to help alleviate the famine, and this does not prevent them from taking advantage of this opportunity to annex land and buy slaves; they will give coffins to corpses dumped on the road, and they will also take tenants to the Yamen and beat them in order to force rent.
In fact, these bureau directors are not really "village sages" - none of the local gentry families are here. It is understandable to be so reserved, but among the businessmen who came here, there were quite a few "connected households" and "white gloves" of the Wuzhou Jin gentry. For example, although no one from Wu Zhixiang's family, who had a close relationship with the Senate, served as a bureau director, the bureau director Da Xinxuan came from his family. In fact, it is an agent.
"The first rat has two ends!" Xie Erren secretly despised him in his heart, but now he was weak and short of food and money, so he had to take advantage of it. So I had to be polite with them, and I praised all the bureau directors for their "good deeds" such as setting up porridge sheds and collecting corpses. Then, he changed the subject and said:
"Now Wuzhou is experiencing a great calamity. The city and outside are devastated. The people are even more hungry and cold - all of this depends on the efforts of the public."
Everyone looked at each other uneasily, knowing the meaning of his words, but Director Xie had both a gun and a big hat, so they had to follow his words and immediately responded: "This is what our generation should mean. "
"Xiong Wencan, this old guy, set a fire when he escaped. The city is now in ruins and the people are in dire straits..." Xie Erren first made the issue of responsibility clear: It's not me who wants you to pay for this, it's Xiong Wencan. "I thought about it and realized there are several important things to do right now."
As he was talking, suddenly the orderly came to report: The card guards from the twelve houses in Wuzhou City and the eleven houses outside the city have arrived and are waiting for orders outside.
"Invite them to come in and discuss things together."
He gave the order and all the players came in. Most of them are traders with a bit of a charlatan attitude. They are familiar with the people on the ground and can handle them in the yamen. They are out-and-out "land lords".
The "land lords" know that no matter which dynasty or generation they are the emperors, they will be required to run errands and need money. They are not considered to be wealthy, so they don't have the uneasy look of the bureau directors. When they come in, they kneel down and kowtow. .
"Everyone, get up. Our Senate doesn't like this." Even though Xie Erren said this, he was still enjoying himself.
"...The things we need to do now are public security, city defense, and relief. If these three are done, the next thing will be easy."
There is nothing unusual about these three things. The aftermath bureau had a private meeting yesterday and came up with an eleven-point aftermath plan. All three of these were included, except that the Australian magistrate said so, so everyone echoed: "Yes, sir!"
"How many refugees are there in the city now?"
Mr. Qiao, the director of the aftermath bureau, quickly took out this tip from his sleeve - the aftermath bureau was giving porridge on the streets and handing out bamboo chips every day. Based on this number, the population of refugees could be roughly calculated.
"There are about 4,000 bamboo chips sent out from various porridge sheds."
"It's a lot less." Xie Erren couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief when he heard that there were only more than 4,000 people, because before entering the city, he heard that Zhu Mingxia arrested more than 10,000 refugees who left the city at night.
"Master, that's a lot." Master Qiao frowned: During the Qi-Chongzhen period, the entire Cangwu County had only 6,698 households and 27,424 people - this also included a considerable part of the rural population.
Although the figures in the Yellow Book are not accurate, and Wuzhou has a large migrant population because it is a regional commercial center, the population in the urban area plus the suburbs is only more than 30,000 to 40,000 people. The ratio of more than 4,000 refugees is already very high
After the liberation of Wuzhou, the refugees who left the city, all those who had homes to return to and relatives and friends to whom they could seek refuge, had gradually dispersed. All that is left behind are homeless and empty-handed refugees. It takes a lot of effort just to provide food and housing for these people.
He glanced at the deputy director who was a naturalized citizen who was accompanying Wuzhou and asked:
"Is the exact number being counted?"
"We are counting, but the refugees are very scattered. It will take a while." The deputy director of the naturalized people said, "But Mr. Qiao's number is about the same..."
“Where are the refugees living now?”
"Most of them are scattered in the shelters of temples in the city, and some are also taken in at the school grounds outside the city. However, there are still many refugees on the streets."
There are two school grounds outside Wuzhou City, namely at Sanhezui and Ximatan, both of which have original barracks for Ming army garrison troops. Among them, the school ground in Ximatan is on the north bank of the Xunjiang River, 2.5 kilometers west of the city. It is relatively far from the urban area. It is now the residence of Zhu Quanxing’s third battalion. The school ground in Ximatan was used as a temporary detention place for prisoners of the Ming army. Zhu Quanxing also sent some refugees there Contained here.
"If there are any large houses such as temples inside and outside the city that can accommodate refugees, they must open their doors to accommodate them," Xie Erren emphasized, "No refugee can live on the street, do you understand?!"
Refugees living on the streets not only hinder traffic, but also pose health and security risks.
"Here!"
"That's good." Xie Yiren nodded and pointed to the secretary next to him, "Bring out the diagram of the lump sum."
The secretary next to him immediately hung up a map. It turned out to be a map of Wuzhou City, with all the neighborhoods in and outside the city clearly marked. Different large areas are outlined in different colors above. It turns out that each area in this area is numbered with stems and earthly branches, and there is a name written next to it. After taking a closer look, it is the names of the "village sages" in the aftermath bureau.
While everyone was puzzled, Xie Erren explained: "This is your assigned responsibility area. Since you are out to do things for the people of Wuzhou, naturally you can't just sit and talk in the aftermath bureau - this is your assigned responsibility area, and everyone is responsible for one. Don't be afraid, I will naturally be afraid of the cadres who will take responsibility, you and the card dealers in this district just need to cooperate with him in doing things."
Xie Erren laughed a few times and then said:
"Each of you must share the responsibility, and go on inspections with the bosses of each community. If you see refugees sleeping in the open, you must register them and send them to various reception points regardless of whether they are willing or not. If there are any missing ones, I will find out I will send it to your home and ask you to raise it as an old man..."
This shocked everyone, and they all expressed that they would do their best to handle it. The bureau directors all had frowning faces. What kind of cadre was this? He was clearly the incarnation of Mr. Xie. However, they rarely met Mr. Xie once. The "cadres" who were responsible for the work were met all the time.
Then Xie Erren announced a few more regulations:
After the refugees are admitted, a register is created and a "refugee certificate" is issued. Refugees are not allowed to move around at will and must be taken back to a holding site for the night every day. Bai Ze relied on "dispatch work orders" to form teams of ten to act collectively.
The core policy of relief and aftermath work is to provide relief through work.
From now on, the relief station will only provide two meals of gruel a day to the elderly, the sick, the disabled and pregnant women. All refugee men and women over the age of 13 will be organized into labor teams to work. Rations are distributed on a daily basis.
Rations are calculated based on work points, and a system of more reward for more work is implemented. However, each person must perform a certain amount of basic work in exchange for rations, and the excess can be settled as money.
If the refugees are simply forced to work, there will inevitably be a situation where the work is done without any effort. Xie Erren does not have that much manpower to supervise and manage. If you abuse local subordinates and strong men, it will inevitably intensify conflicts. The final decision was still to focus on “economic stimulus”.
Work points are based on specific workload requirements. This system has been implemented in Lingao for many years. There are mature examples of what kind of work, how much workload and how many work points, which can be checked. It is very convenient. This is also the confidence that Xie Erren dares to implement the work point system.
In fact, Xie Erren was still planning: after the city wall was repaired and the ruins were cleared, the road and sewer reconstruction project would begin. Anyway, the war would stop and the people would not dare to make a fuss, lest they be like Liu Xiang in Guangzhou, who spent half a year tearing things apart. It caused a lot of complaints.
The refugees have contributed their efforts and the necessary money and food naturally have to be asked by the Rehabilitation Bureau to "provide money if they have money."
"I know that no one's house has a mountain of gold or silver, nor does it have a mountain of rice and a mountain of rice. Although it is for the benefit of Sangzi, after all, it is not a house built for one's own family. It still hurts to take it out..."
"I don't dare, I don't dare." All the local sages said "I don't dare" while frowning in distress.
"So, the money and food will be shared among the big households in the city - Shengdou people have a weak foundation and cannot withstand the hardship, so I have to ask you to bear with me." Xie Erren.
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Next update: Volume 7 - Guangzhou Governance Chapter 337
