Liu Xin asked strangely: "My wife, what's the matter? Are you not welcome to come back?"
Ma Yun gave him an angry look: "You have nothing to learn from Liu Bei for making Taoyuan justice. Do you want to learn from his brother as brothers and feet, and his wife as clothes. Clothes can be sewn if they are torn; if their hands and feet are broken, they can be continued?"
"This big-eared thief, I'm the most annoying." Liu Xin shouted injustice, sitting next to her and said, "In my eyes, the brothers are like centipede's siblings, and the wife is winter clothes."
Ma Yun said, "I know the poor mouth." But she smiled long ago and nestled in Liu Xin's arms.
Liu Xin embraced her smoothly and said with a smile on her face: "Speaking of which, should I prepare more sets of these clothes?"
Ma Yun stomped his feet hard when he heard that, Liu Xin let out a scream of "Oh" and fled out like a rabbit, and Ma Yun's "guckling" laughter came from behind, which was strange to the servants. look.
As time passed day by day, the drought in the north continued to intensify. "Man will conquer the sky" is destined to be just a joke. The power of nature is ruthless. Although we have tried our best, the summer harvest in Hejian County was still greatly affected in the age of relying on the sky. The only thing to be thankful for is that The wells were dug to ensure people's drinking water. Other counties are not so lucky. Summer grain harvests are almost impossible. Many villages have trouble drinking water. A large number of refugees have appeared. As the number of refugees increased, the epidemic began to spread.
Zhang Jiao's long-awaited opportunity finally came. On the one hand, he organized the Taoists to give porridge relief in the drought-stricken counties. People called him Zhang Dashan. On the other hand, Zhang Jiao collected medicinal materials based on several ancient recipes he found, and simmered them into juice, and bottled them, calling it holy water, to treat people's illnesses.
The patients drank the holy water from Zhangjiao, some of them still died, while others were cured. According to Taipingdao, the patient was not cured because of his insincerity. As a result, many refugees took Zhang Jiao as a god and went down to the world, to the point that the number of people who came to Zhang Jiao for medicine every day ranged from hundreds to dozens.
In this way, the people of Qing, Xu, You, Ji, Jing, Yang, Yan, and Henan Bazhou, who do not know the name of the great wise teacher Zhang Jiao, admire each other, even abandon their property, fight to go to the school, travel around, Although he did not hesitate to die, there were hundreds of thousands of followers. So far, Zhang Jiao has set up 36 parties privately. There are more than 10,000 people in Dafang and 6,000 or 7,000 in Xiaofang. Zhang Jiao sees that the believers are increasing and the hearts of the people are attached. He secretly searched for food and grass, played as a military horse, and raised the flag to rebel only when the time was right.
Although the local people in Hejian had no worries about food and clothing, the influx of refugees still attracted great attention from Liu Xin. Tian Feng and Jushou rushed around the counties all day long, and Zhao Yun, Xu Huang and others also led troops to various places to maintain order. Due to the drought, summer planting has been unable to start, and many young and middle-aged people living at home have been mobilized. In addition to helping to maintain order, the environmental sanitation of the refugee settlements should also have a dedicated person responsible. Liu Xin attached great importance to epidemic prevention. All dead livestock and poultry were burned and buried, and covered with lime.
As the river almost dried up, and the drinking water for humans and animals in Hejian County all relied on wells dug in various places, it prevented the water source from being polluted and caused the epidemic to spread in the river on a large scale. After dozens of consecutive days of hard work, the situation in Hejian gradually stabilized.
Liu Xin in the prefect’s mansion did not let go. He was walking anxiously outside the door. Ma Yun’s heart-piercing shouts were heard from time to time in the room. Every time he heard it, he Everyone's heart needs to be squeezed.
Cold sweat was already oozing out of Liu Xin's forehead, and finally a cry of "wow" from the baby came from the room. The loud crying sounded through Yun Xiao, and the midwife walked out with joy and said: "Congratulations, sir..."
"How is Madam?" Liu Xin asked eagerly without waiting for her to finish.
The midwife was taken aback. She had delivered births for decades. Everyone would ask "Is it a man or a woman" in the first sentence. But like the prefect, the first time she met her, she couldn't help but look. I was speechless for a while.
Liu Xin saw that the midwife looked different, and suddenly became nervous, grabbed the midwife, lifted her up, and shouted sharply: "What's the matter with the madam?"
This adult has always been kind and has never seen him speak so loudly. The midwife trembled with fright and said: "Madam, mother and son are safe, mother and son are safe..."
Liu Xin breathed a sigh of relief and let her hand loose. The midwife fell to the ground, limp and unable to get up.
Liu Xin saw Ma Yun lying in her arms, her face pale in weakness, without the rosyness of the past. Liu Xin said softly: "My wife, you have worked hard." Ma Yun smiled happily at him. Liu Xin asked again: "Is it a boy or a girl?"
Ma Yunyou's face became redder and red, and finally couldn't help but yelled: "What are you doing? Why are you asking now! Go out, I'm going to breastfeed my son."
Only half a year has passed since the Yellow Turban Uprising. Liu Xin wanted to expand the size of the army, but the court had regulations on the formation of troops and horses in each county, and if it was not done well, there was a suspicion of rebellion. Liu Xin had to focus on the training and equipment of the army, and took advantage of the severe drought to purchase a number of horses one after another.
The refugees have been put together, but only porridge for three meals a day can only guarantee that they will not starve to death, and it is impossible to get full. Looking at the refugees who were getting weaker and weaker, Tian Feng came up with an idea-to work for relief. He organized the young and middle-aged among the refugees and invested in repairing the city walls in each county. Because Hejian is an inner county and has lived peacefully for many years, most of the county walls have fallen into disrepair for a long time, and many places have been dilapidated.
This is indeed a good idea. It not only solves the idle state of the refugees, but also enables some of them to eat their belly. After listening to Tian Feng's suggestion, Liu Xin immediately ordered the implementation.
At the same time, the memorials reported to the court for disaster relief were piled up in front of Liu Hong like snow flakes. Disaster relief costs money. For Liu Hong, who has a lot of money, it is simply difficult for him. Liu Hong's instructions were to strictly order the prefects of the counties to raise money and food to help the victims. The governor of each state supervised the governor. The only thing the court did was to cut taxes by half this year. This has been distressing for Liu Hong for several days.
The prefects of the counties were all dumbfounded when they received the order. This year, there was no grain of grain in Chengdu. Not only did the imperial court not allocate any money, but also collected half of the tax. So the prefects each showed their magical powers, some were apportioned to the big households, and some were forcibly taken from the common people, which made complaints and complaints more convenient.
The situation in Hejian is much better. After all, the people still have a portion of their harvest this year. Moreover, Liu Xin has exempted the people from taxation. All the part handed over to the court will be paid by the county government. But this way, the part of the tax increase last year will also be paid this year It was all consumed.
After the fall, the precipitation gradually increased, and the drought situation in various places has been significantly alleviated. However, the people have missed the opportunity for farming. This year is destined to be no harvest. Many people don't know if they can survive this winter. Fortunately, Liu Xin, the prefect of Hejian County, organized the distribution of food, and other places also organized the Taipingdao organization to distribute food. Not too many people died of starvation. The difference is that as long as the refugees who participate in the work-for-work relief in Hejian, the whole family can eat, and the others can only guarantee that they will not starve to death.
However, with the relief of the drought, many refugees have begun to return to their hometowns one after another. After all, most Chinese people have the idea that their homeland is hard to leave. Hejian County has also become much quieter recently, and government offices in other counties have finally begun to open warehouses to release grain. In Hejian County, people praised Liu Xin, the prefect, but in other places people extolled the benevolence and virtue of Zhang Jiao, a "great and wise teacher, peaceful Taoist". Many people served the great and wise teacher Zhang Jiao at home. first name. Of these two people, one was the prefect of Hejian, Jizhou, and the other was from Julu County, Jizhou. As a result, Jizhou Governor Han Fu, who was in charge of supervising local duties, put up a memorial to praise the merits of the two.
The unprecedented drought finally passed, and Liu Hong's mood improved. When he saw Han Fu's memorial, he ordered the officials to make a plan and give him a compliment.
After Situ Yang Ci learned about it, he entered this memorial and said: "Hejian prefect Liu Xin has not been in office for a long time. It is commendable to be sympathetic to the people, but it is only a matter of his own. You should watch what he does in the future and praise him. Not later. As for Zhang Jiao and others to confuse the people, it will be a disaster, but now his power has spread. If the state and county are immediately ordered to arrest and crusade, I am afraid that he will rebel immediately. The emperor asked the emperor to appoint him as a state. The governor, sent his apprentices to their hometowns, and waited until his gang disperses and Zhang Jiao was alone. Then he sent officials to arrest him, no effort!"
Yang Ci's strategy is actually quite powerful. If Liu Hong adopts it, it will be difficult to say whether the Yellow Turban Uprising will break out. His idea was to use a vacant post as a provincial governor to win over Zhang Jiao, to show that the court had commended him, and the people would naturally say good things about the court when they heard it. If Zhang Jiao rebelled at this time, the beautiful image in front of him would naturally be destroyed. If he is not eager to rebel, as long as he becomes an official, there is always a way to find his mistake, and then he can be properly arrested. If Liu Xin saw this memorial, he would definitely think of the story that Taibai Jinxing tricked Monkey King to go to heaven.
But Yang Ci’s doing so was very unfair to Liu Xin. Among the many disaster-affected counties in the world, only Hejian County did the best, but it could not be praised. In fact, this was because Yang Ci had heard that Liu Xin and Zhang Rang had a close friendship and that they often had contacts, so Liu Xin was included in the castration party.
Liu Hong saw that Yang Ci's memorial was very different from what he had thought, so he put it aside for many days and refused to use it. Yang Ci felt ashamed for a while, so he said he was sick and begged to rest.
A few days later, another official Liu Tao said: "Zhang Jiao’s conspiracy is not one day or two days. There are rumors spreading that Zhang Jiao and others have sneaked into the capital, spied on the government, and wanted to commit misconduct. They were taboo against each other and dared not report to the court. They also asked the emperor to impose an edict to seize Zhang Jiao.