"The route map, the storage locations, and the storage list, all of you captains and deputy captains will be required to write them down and destroy them personally. Don't let these things fall into the hands of others."
"I have arranged for personnel to stay behind at the supply storage points in various places. As long as the secret code matches, they will obey your orders, including the personnel and supplies."
"I've arranged for people in all four states to pretend to be disaster victims. They've received training in advance and have learned basic wilderness survival skills like finding water, fishing, and hunting."
"Once you are all in your positions, they will encourage the people to flee the famine in advance and lead them to find water and food along the escape route."
Those who are responsible for pretending to be disaster victims are all local people in the four states. They have relatives and friends in the four states. If the news spreads from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred, the people will soon all take action.
In this way, they can leave their hometown before the rivers, lakes, mountain springs and wells in various places run out of water and their families run out of food.
The stored food plus the wild vegetables, leaves, bark, rabbits, pheasants, fish, etc. that can be obtained along the way, not to mention that everyone can be fed, at least the number of people starving to death will not be as numerous as in the original book.
As for the supplies that Yu Zizhen spent several years preparing, Yu Zizhen did not intend to distribute them all for free.
The truth is, with her ability, she simply can't afford to support all the victims...
Her plan has always been to lend a helping hand only at the most critical moment, allowing as many people as possible to survive at the lowest cost.
For example, the buckets and water bags she prepared were not for the convenience of all the victims, but for storing water in advance or running a long way to fetch water when the drought broke out, and then selling or giving them away, so that the last group of victims who left and had difficulty finding water would not die of thirst on the road.
For example, she would not distribute the food, salt, sugar, medicinal materials, cloth, shoes and socks, ready-made clothes, straw mats, etc. that she prepared for free, but would try her best to let the victims buy them with money, barter, or even barter with people.
Only in this way can she save more people under the premise of limited supplies and manpower.
In order to achieve this goal, she had no intention of appearing in public as a good person from the beginning.
She asked Lu Mingxuan and others to pretend to be an unscrupulous caravan that was making money from disasters, and she also went to the trouble of setting the rules in advance, strictly ordering them not to show kindness indiscriminately.
When the time came, she not only explained her good intentions to Lu Mingxuan in detail, but also repeatedly urged him to make sure to convey all her ideas and requirements.
Lu Mingxuan nodded vigorously as he listened, and in his heart he admired his own prince's intelligence, magnanimity, kindness and forethought.
He knew that the good reputation that Yu Zizhen could gain by doing this was not even as good as those who simply gave out porridge for a few days. In fact, if Yu Zizhen had not broken down and explained his good intentions to everyone, his subordinates would probably think that Yu Zizhen was really making a fortune from disasters.
The eldest son of their family gave everything he had to disaster relief without asking for anything in return. In order to save more people, he didn't even care about his own reputation. This is a person who truly cares about the people of the world and is kind-hearted.
At this moment, Lu Mingxuan suddenly felt that their family's eldest son was the one who was truly suitable to be the emperor and rule the world.
He suppressed the rebellious thoughts that suddenly popped up in his mind and continued to listen carefully to Yu Zizhen's subsequent arrangements.
"I've already said hello to Chen Qing and Zheng Yuzhi. Their fellow disciples will be responsible for helping me deliver more food to you."
Lu Mingxuan was stunned. "Are you planning to raise money to buy it now?"
As far as he knew, none of the grain stored by Yu Zizhen had been transported to the capital. Wasn't all that grain in the four states and their surrounding areas?
Yu Zizhen lowered his voice, "That's one aspect."
Lu Mingxuan frowned, "Is it too late to buy it now?"
It takes time to raise money, buy grain and transport grain. Most importantly, seeing that the four states are about to suffer from drought, those who have grain on hand and are willing to sell it will definitely raise the price of grain to make more money.
Yu Zizhen sighed, "We have to buy it. You have to know that even if we take the victims out of the affected areas of drought and locust plague, they still need to continue to eat."
This is simply a bottomless pit. All Yu Zizhen can do is to prevent as many people as possible from dying of starvation, thirst, freezing, illness, or unrest.
Lu Mingxuan had obviously also thought about how horrible it was to support so many people at the same time. He frowned and looked at Yu Zizhen, "Sir, do you plan to support them forever?"
If that were the case, he would definitely speak up to give advice.
Fortunately, Yu Zizhen waved his hand at him and said, "I will only use work-for-relief as appropriate for the first two or three months."
The main reason is that the disaster relief money and grain will never reach the hands of ordinary people. If she does not intervene, the disaster relief money and grain allocated by the court will only enrich those corrupt officials in the end.
This is an extremely difficult battle. The long six-year preparation period is just the beginning. The next six months will be the real critical period of this battle.
She reminded Lu Mingxuan, "You know how inefficient the imperial court is. Even if we had disclosed the drought and locust plague in advance, they would still have to wait at least a month or two before they started providing disaster relief."
Lu Mingxuan was well aware of the corruption and darkness of the current imperial court. Even without Yu Zizhen's explanation, he immediately added a second point, "That's not the most important thing. The most important thing is that even if the imperial court allocates relief funds and grain, those funds may not reach the people."
Yu Zizhen sighed. It wasn't that he might not be able to get there, but that he really couldn't get there.
She spoke to Lu Mingxuan about the details for a few more words before letting him quietly leave the Zhenbei Palace.
In order to prevent him from being targeted, Yu Zizhen specially gave him a new image.
On the fifth day after Lu Mingxuan left the capital, people appeared in the four states, preparing to flee famine with their families.
Those people were the leaders that Yu Zizhen had asked people to select in advance. When they started to act, most of the wells, rivers and lakes in the four states had only a small amount of water left, and there were countless completely dried-up mountain springs.
They also reminded everyone, "There are so many grasshoppers this year, it looks like there's going to be a locust plague."
After hearing what they said, the experienced farmers immediately ran to the fields to check, and found a large number of tiny grasshoppers that had not yet grown up in the fields and wilderness.
Their lives were already difficult enough because the fields were too dry to plant seeds and crops could not be grown. Now the grasshoppers were multiplying in large numbers due to the drought and heat. Once they reached a large scale, these guys would eat up all the plants. Wouldn't they then have nothing left to eat, even grass roots and tree bark?
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