At the Song residence, Tie Qingfeng was reading in his room when the door was suddenly pushed open. He frowned, about to reprimand someone, but upon seeing who it was, he was so startled that he immediately stood up.
"Seventh Uncle, what brings you here so suddenly?"
Zheng Qingshu said seriously, "If I hadn't come at this time, how would I have known that you weren't resting so late and were still staying up to read?"
"I was just about to go to sleep." Tie Qingfeng felt a little guilty. Actually, he wasn't feeling well and couldn't sleep, so he had been sitting in the room pretending to read.
From as far back as he could remember, he often suffered from pain in his internal organs because of lingering toxins. His father invited a royal physician to examine his pulse, who said that the toxins had spread to his internal organs and, in a very tactful way, indicated that there was no cure.
However, his father did not give up. Over the years, he spent a lot of money and connections to find famous doctors and experts to treat his illness. Although he has not been able to get rid of the remaining poison in his body, his life has been kept on hold.
Tie Qingfeng felt helpless. To be honest, many times he felt that rather than enduring the pain of the poison taking effect, it would be better to just give him a quick death.
But thinking of his parents' love and expectations for him, he couldn't bear to abandon them, so he kept putting it off. But now his body has reached its limit. If he can't find a medicinal ingredient to counteract the poison within a year, his life will really come to an end.
Zheng Qingshu stared at his nephew's face for a long time, and finally felt a pang of pain in his heart. Tie Qingfeng was his eldest sister's youngest son. His father had seven children, but only his eldest sister was his biological sister. His eldest sister was twenty years older than him. The Zheng family was a prominent family in the capital, and some of their relatives held official positions in the court, but none of them held high positions.
Only Zheng Qingshu's brother-in-law, Tie Qingfeng's father, held the highest official position. Although he was Zheng's son-in-law, everyone in the Zheng family valued Tie Qingfeng and his only son. Of course, Zheng Qingshu and Tie Qingfeng were close by blood, and even if it wasn't for personal gain, he would genuinely care about his nephew.
By this time, he had already guessed why his nephew was still awake so late. He must be feeling unwell and unable to sleep. But this child had always been sensible since he was a child. He never complained about the pain he could bear and always endured it silently.
"Don't worry, Feng'er, your uncle will definitely find the medicinal ingredient for you. Tomorrow, Zheng Yue and the others will go into the deep mountains together," Zheng Qingshu said gently.
"Uncle, we both know the hope is slim. Who knows where that so-called expert came from? He's just a conman who's better at swindling people than anyone else. He just does a quick divination and says that the medicinal ingredient I need is hidden deep in these poor mountains."
Let alone the possibility that the herbs might not even be found on this mountain, even if they were, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. In short, I never had any hope. If it weren't for my father's earnest persuasion and my mother's constant tears, I wouldn't have wanted to be a fool and come to live in this poor mountain village.
Tie Qingfeng was very dissatisfied with being sent to this poor mountain village, which was a hundred and eight thousand miles away from the capital. However, his father said that the master was really capable and he had to come in person, otherwise he was afraid that he would not be able to find the medicinal ingredient in time, since this place was too far away from the capital.
In fact, Zheng Qingshu also felt that this was unlikely, but he still held onto a sliver of hope that the medicinal ingredient could really be found deep in the mountains of Yegou Village.
He was a second-class Jinshi (a successful candidate in the highest imperial examinations) and had spent three years in the Hanlin Academy. He was not required to be demoted, but he insisted on coming to the south for his nephew and specifically chose Nanyang Prefecture.
At the time, there was a refugee riot in Nanyang Prefecture. If his nephew hadn't wanted to come, he wouldn't have chosen to take up his post there. He even had to pull some strings for it.
"Qingfeng, don't be too pessimistic. Things will take a turn for the better," Zheng Qingshu said with a confident tone.
"Let's do what we can, Uncle. Don't waste your time on things that aren't our concern."
Seeing his nephew's tense face, Zheng Qingshu patted him on the shoulder helplessly, "Don't feel guilty. I didn't come here entirely for you."
"real?"
"Naturally, the north is suffering from drought again this year. Not a drop of rain has fallen since the Lunar New Year, so people can't farm. There are also locust plagues in some places, and many people are fleeing again, seemingly heading south." Because the south has had favorable weather this year, the summer rice harvest is just around the corner.
The south is not short of food for the time being, but it cannot accept a large influx of refugees. Therefore, all the prefectural cities will close their gates to prevent refugees from escaping.
However, preventing refugees from fleeing and denying them a way to survive was not feasible and could easily lead to riots. Therefore, the imperial court issued an order for officials in the southern provinces to raise grain for disaster relief.
"An imperial envoy will come to personally supervise the process to prevent officials from embezzling disaster relief grain and to ensure that the grain is truly distributed to the refugees," Zheng Qingshu said.
"So what does this have to do with you coming here tonight?" Tie Qingfeng asked.
"Of course, it's for procuring grain. As long as enough grain is handed over, the people can be exempted from corvée labor. Two years ago, Nanyang Prefecture obtained some sweet potato seeds from foreign barbarians. Sweet potatoes are drought-resistant and easy to grow. The prefect's intention is that a large number of sweet potato seedlings have been cultivated in the past two years."
"When the earthquake strikes, we'll see how well the sweet potato yield is. We'll also send some sweet potato seeds to the north so they can grow them themselves. As long as there isn't a continuous drought for two or three years, the sweet potatoes should be able to survive."
Not long after he took office last year, a yamen runner sent Zheng Qingshu some sweet potatoes to try. He thought they were very good, warm, sticky, sweet and filling, but eating too many was not very elegant, but that was not a problem.
This time, he personally went to various places to confirm the planting and yield of sweet potatoes, so that he could find a way to get the people to hand them over, which would allow the people to participate in the earthquake relief efforts. However, the food handed over for the earthquake relief efforts should mainly consist of sweet potatoes, but other foods that could fill their stomachs could also be used.
Seeing that it was late, Zheng Qingshu didn't say anything more and told his nephew to go to bed and rest. "I know you're not feeling well right now. I just had someone brew some medicine for you. You'll feel better after you drink it."
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