Qiu Chan told him roughly the situation of her mother's family and her husband's family, so as not to reveal the truth when the thieves came to interrogate him.
"It's just students boarding here. Although they are uncles and nephews, they are still different between men and women..." Yi Haoran began to worry again.
"Sir... don't worry, until the streets are calmer tomorrow, I will ask someone to bring a letter to announce the funeral..."
Only then did Yi Haoran remember that Qiu Chan's late husband was still lying in the coffin in the hall. He quickly got up, twisted three sticks of incense on the case, went to the coffin, prayed silently, and put the incense on it.
Since there is a funeral, Qiu Chan's relatives will naturally come to help with the matter - for such middle-class families, and during the war, even if the spirit cannot be kept for seven days, at least it must be three or three days before it can be sent. During this period, the mourning companion stayed at home without leaving anyone alone. As an "elder", he stayed here to help with the funeral, so he would not arouse suspicion, nor would he cause any material objections to the "lone man and widow" living in the same room.
Thinking of this, I couldn't help but breathed a sigh of relief.
As soon as I relaxed, I felt sleepy. Qiu Chan said: "Cousin, please go to the study at the back to rest..."
"No, no need," Yi Haoran waved his hand, "niece, please help yourself. I'll just take a rest here." He was determined not to go to the back room.
Qiu Chan knew that he was avoiding being alone with her, so she said: "There is still a spirit here, cousin..."
"It's okay." Yi Haoran looked at the black coffin under the dim light and said, "I have been on the battlefield and crawled out of the dead. What is parked here is the body of my niece-in-law. There is nothing to be afraid of. I’m not taboo about this either. Even if I’m staying here to keep vigil for my niece and son-in-law.”
Qiu Chan secretly praised him as an upright gentleman. She missed the sleeping child in the back room, so she went back.
Yi Haoran stopped her again: "If the thief leaves anything behind, you must put it away. Either bury the offending things or burn them tomorrow when you start a fire for cooking."
"It's from the slave family province."
After taking care of him, Yi Haoran leaned his head against the wall and immediately fell into sleep.
As soon as Zhu Quanxing left with the large army, Xie Erren felt a little guilty. After all, this pole was not as solid as the barrel of a gun. Moreover, in his opinion, the number of garrison troops in this mere company was too small.
"You don't feel it when you stay at the rear, but you feel that a stable life is hard-won when you reach the front line." Xie Erren said with emotion as he looked at Wuzhou City after the disaster.
However, in front of elders or naturalized people, Xie Erren appeared "calm and confident". He set up a temporary military control committee in the Wuzhou government office and started working immediately.
Before Xie Erren set out, he received the seal of "Wuzhou Municipal Government" and specially engraved a large personal seal, which he was holding back to seal. Immediately take care of people and prepare a notice to calm the people.
This Notice for Animating the People was compiled by the Civil Affairs Department and is divided into two parts. The first half is a fill-in-the-blank article in a fixed format, using half-literary sentences, explaining that the Senate is "to punish the people and punish crimes" and "to restore the Song Dynasty", and to ask the people to "settle for their own business and not flee in panic" and so on. . Just fill in the specific city name when using it.
The lower half is blank, which are various administrative orders filled in by the military control commissions in various places based on local conditions. In fact, these administrative orders are very similar. The contents are nothing more than the implementation of curfews, household registration checks, recruiting stragglers to surrender, and "old civil servants" such as officials and government officials to report to work within a time limit, etc.
Xie Erren had practiced calligraphy in the old days, and his brushstrokes in large regular script were still acceptable to people, so he didn't have to bother with naturalized people or retained personnel to copy them. He looked carefully at it and then stamped it with the seals of "Wuzhou District Office" and "Wuzhou District Director".
"Immediately find someone to copy fifty copies as usual, stamp them and hand them over to the aftermath bureau, asking them to send people to post them all over the city!"
After issuing the announcement, it’s time to start the actual work. His secretary had changed the public cases heard by the Wuzhou magistrate into his desk, put official paper and stationery on it, and was waiting for him, the "Wuzhou Magistrate of the Great Song Dynasty", to give orders.
When it comes to work, the immediate priority is naturally to deal with the aftermath. However, the aftermath work is complicated. The "County-Level Administrative Leadership Work Manual" compiled by the Civil Affairs Bureau lists relief for victims, city repairs, municipal rectification, household registration checks, public security rectification, market stabilization, etc. Heap of transactions.
Various requests and reports poured into the lobby of the Wuzhou government office that he used as his office. Unlike Guangzhou, Wuzhou has a large team of veterans. At the end of the strategy of Guangzhou and Guangzhou, Xie Erren can only make decisions on all the complicated matters. On the good side, he is a "holy dictator". On the bad side, it is not easy for anyone to stay calm when facing the complicated aftermath of government affairs alone.
What's more, the number of naturalized civilians under Xie Erren, including a company of the Fubo Army and his personal secretary and orderlies, was only 130. There are only about twenty cadres who have received administrative training. It's quite a stretch.
He remembered that he had heard in the government affairs class before departure that administrative matters must be prioritized. There is no certain standard for what is "urgent" and what is "delayed". It all depends on the specific situation faced by the executive head at the time.
What is Wuzhou’s top priority? Xie Erren thought about it and realized that there were many things to do, but the most important thing was to maintain social order and stability.
Unlike Guangzhou, which opened the city without blood, although Wuzhou successfully prevented the fire that burned the city, many places in the city were still looted and burned by insurgents. A large number of houses were destroyed, and many people were displaced. They dragged their children with them. The elderly and the young are crowded together on the streets and in temples. Not only do they suffer from hunger and poverty, but they can also easily lead to epidemics and various public security problems. In particular, there are many broken soldiers who have taken off their uniforms - which is a major hidden danger to social stability and must be resolved as soon as possible.
Xie Erren thought over and over again and listed three "urgent tasks."
The first is to clean up and rescue refugees, maintain public order, and ensure social stability; this is a top priority to stabilize people's hearts and needs no elaboration.
The second is to repair urban defense facilities to ensure the safety of the city. After Wuzhou was besieged, the city walls were in ruins, and there were not many defenders left. Even if the Ming army was unable to counterattack for a while, they still had to guard against bandits from surrounding areas taking the opportunity to plunder. In particular, there is a potential danger in the Xijiang River Basin: the Babaiyao riots. It was precisely for this reason that Zhu Mingxia hurriedly took the main force of the First Brigade back to Zhaoqing. During the Datengxia Yao uprising in the seventh year of Tianshun, the leader Hou Dagou led a night attack on Wuzhou with 700 people, rushed into Wuzhou City, killed the chief envoy Song Qin, and captured the general Chen Jing. Their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated.
The third is to restore Wuzhou’s internal and external transportation and make Wuzhou, the commercial logistics center of Guangdong and Guangxi, operational again. Wuzhou is located at the junction of Guangdong and Guangxi, at the intersection of Xijiang, Xunjiang and Guijiang rivers. It has been the throat of Guangdong and Guangxi since ancient times, the transportation hub of Lingnan, and the "water gateway" of Guangxi. It can be said that it is connected in all directions. It is said that "holding the key to western Guangdong connects the blessed land of eastern Guangdong". It regulates the gate of Xijiang, the golden waterway. Although the war is raging now, as long as the war subsides, this golden waterway will flow.
However, these three things all involve the issue of food and money. It's just that Wuzhou's grain stocks suffered heavy losses, especially the private grain stocks of rice merchants, which suffered heavy losses after being "requisitioned" and robbed several times. Most of the public grain stocks were looted and shipped away. How much money is left is being taken by the special search team of the Grain Planning Institute, and the exact number will not be known until a few days later.
It is unrealistic to ask Lianqin for food. Lianqin's transportation of food from Sanshui to Wuzhou is limited by transportation capacity and the food storage is tight. Now, if he does not "transfer" food from Wuzhou, it will be considered as supporting his work.
It is necessary to take action on the local wealthy people again and ask them to "be kind and charitable". Xie Erren thought.
Having made up his mind, he immediately called Zhao Toyota
"Go and notify the people in the aftermath bureau and ask them to come to my place for a meeting at 1 p.m."
"Yes!" Zhao Toyota turned around and was about to leave, but Xie Erren stopped him again and asked:
"Is Permit still in town?"
"Chief Xu is interrogating the prisoners in the prison camp outside the city, not in the city."
"Send someone to invite him to my place for dinner tonight and discuss some things!"
In fact, he had nothing special to discuss with Xu Xu, but it was the first time that Xie Erren was in charge of work and administration alone. There were no other elders around him, so he felt somewhat unsure.
Although Xu Xu is from the navy, he is still a soldier. He can be asked to give his opinions on Wuzhou's defense and security.
Three cobblers are like Zhuge Liang, and there is nothing wrong with brainstorming. Xie Erren thought.
At this time, Xu Xu was secretly meeting Luo Yangming in a ruined temple outside the city.
Luo Yangming had permission to send someone to call him out of the shop in the name of "handling the aftermath." Everyone in the family was sweating for him: working for the deputy master has never been a good word since ancient times. It's hard to say if he might even lose his life.
At this moment, the abbot's room in the ruined temple was actually enjoying itself. After Xu Xu met "Lone Wolf", he praised him profusely. This made Luo Yangming very embarrassed - he had not been in the "Green Zone" for a long time and was somewhat unaccustomed to Lingao's words and phrases.
"... I won't say any more. Your commendation will be issued by the center soon. In fact, compared to this commendation order, your contribution to Wuzhou will be remembered and praised by others even if it takes decades or hundreds of years. Xu Xu said, "What are you going to do next?" He looked into the eyes of the middle-aged businessman in front of him, "The center gives me the right to deal with the situation on the spot. If you want to go back, we can help you make arrangements: whether you are coming back or not." If you are high, you can go to any place under the control of the Senate - such as your hometown Sanshui - you don't have to worry about moving, living and working. If you are willing to continue doing business, we can help you open a store; if you are willing to stay locally I can also arrange work."
Luo Yangming shook his head: "I don't want to go back. Going to Sanshui will only make me sad. Besides, A Tao doesn't want to go back."
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Next update: Volume 7 - Guangzhou Governance Chapter 335
