Chapter 353 Bad Weather
The entire capital of Xirong was under martial law. After three days of searching, the soldiers searched every rat hole in the city, but they still couldn't find any suspicious people.
The food and supplies prepared for war really seemed to have been taken away by the gods, leaving no trace at all.
The original plan to send troops to attack Bohai County was temporarily stopped due to the sudden disappearance of food and supplies.
But the days of Xirong became even more difficult.
Jiang Tangtang did not force her way into the Xirong Emperor's private treasury, but she checked all the small warehouses.
All the food, wild and marine products in the warehouse were looted.
She took away the food and delicacies from the palace and placed them in the dilapidated temples outside Xiacheng, and other places with a large number of refugees.
The refugees knelt down to thank the gods in heaven for giving them food, but the Xirong Emperor, because of the sudden disappearance of food, had to live a frugal life.
What is more serious than the fact that the Xirong Royal Palace can only eat coarse food is that a bigger crisis is quietly sweeping across Xirong.
Xirong is located in the north and its winters are colder than those in Da Zhou.
This winter is colder than in previous years.
After a hailstorm at the beginning of winter, most of the land in Xirong was hit by heavy rain.
The drought finally ended, but floods came again.
The bodies of the Xirong people who had not been dealt with in time due to the plague were washed away by the flood. The infected bodies contaminated the water source, causing the plague to worsen.
The Xirong people seemed to be dragged into the devil's abyss, and their people lived in dire straits every day.
The same bad weather also occurred in Bohai County and Lingnan.
However, because Jiang Tangtang strictly implemented the policy of burning corpses, although the flood caused some inconvenience and losses at the time, the situation was not too serious.
As early as the first rain, Jiang Tangtang was worried about flooding. After returning from Xirong, she began to recruit a large number of workers to dig canals and dredge the river to minimize the damage caused by the flood.
In order to avoid wasting fiscal revenue, several groups of workers had already been organized to learn the techniques of building kangs, but no orders were actually given to repair them.
But looking at the heavy rain, Jiang Tangtang guessed that it would get colder as time went on, and he didn't care about wasting fiscal revenue, so he arranged for people to build a refugee shelter and repair a kang.
In order to ensure that the refugees can still use it in the future, Jiang Tangtang built it like a modern employee dormitory.
If extreme weather occurs this year, this refugee camp will be arranged by the government to accommodate refugees and help them overcome difficulties.
But if there is no extreme weather, the house will not be wasted. In the future, a workshop will be built next to it and the house will be used as a residence for the workers.
In addition to the refugee camps built outside the city, another one was built at the foot of Boshan Mountain.
Whether they were workers digging canals and dredging rivers, or workers building houses and building kangs, they had to work in the rain.
In order to reduce the risk of workers getting sick, Jiang Tangtang planted several acres of ginger in the space.
Every worker will be given a bowl of ginger water before going to work, and another bowl when they come back from work.
In modern times, ginger is a very common seasoning.
But in this era, ginger was used as medicine. Ordinary people did not grow ginger, and using ginger as a seasoning was the exclusive domain of wealthy families.
The workers felt that the value of these two bowls of ginger water was far greater than their wages.
In fact, the value of this ginger water is indeed more than a dozen copper coins and a few whole grain steamed buns every day.
The workers who worked in the rain every day not only did not get sick, but many of them even felt that they were in better health.
For a time, digging ditches and dredging rivers in Bohai County, Lingnan and other places became a popular job.
Many people tried to find out whether the government was still recruiting.
Jiang Tangtang has always adhered to the principle of survival of the fittest in recruiting workers.
She will try her best to provide good conditions for the workers, but at the same time, workers who are lazy and slack will be eliminated.
Eliminate unqualified workers, replace them with new ones, and then continue the original principle of survival of the fittest.
This kind of employment mechanism allows the workers to be fully alert and alert at work. The construction schedules of dredging canals and building houses in various places are not affected by the weather.
"Mrs. Lu is truly a deity!"
Several officials who had fled from Beijing looked at the newly built houses with amazement in their eyes.
A house this size would have taken at least three to five months to complete in Beijing before. But how long had it been? Only about half a month, and they were already under construction and had to put up the beams.
Although there are many workers and many advanced tools they have never seen before, the recent weather is really bad. It rains every day and the temperature is getting lower and lower.
It is really rare that the workers did not slack off and worked with all their might under such severe weather conditions.
Someone thought of Xiao Yu, who had recently led troops to steal food and was caught but not yet punished. He shook his head and said, "If the Great Zhou had not exiled such a talent back then, but instead made use of him, how could we have come to this point?"
But some people disagreed, "It's easy to say. Even if the Lu family hadn't been exiled, Madam Lu would have at most become a virtuous woman.
Madam Lu was able to achieve what she has today precisely because she was exiled to Lingnan, free from the constraints of imperial power and secular rules."
"Don't you think that besides imperial power and secular conventions, General Lu's attitude is more important? Without General Lu's support, no matter how smart she is, she would be nothing more than a counselor. How could she have achieved such success today?"
The rest of the group agreed with this statement. They felt that Jiang Tangtang was indeed powerful, but she also needed Lu Shiyan's support.
After a while of talking, they turned around and started talking about Xiao Yu.
Xiao Yu and his men tried to steal grain but failed, and were all captured by the local generals. After Jiang Tangtang returned, he did not execute these people, but sent them directly to the mine.
Many people expressed their disapproval of Jiang Tangtang's handling of the situation.
"She is a woman after all, and she is too merciful when handling matters. She should have eradicated the problem completely and killed Xiao Yu and the other princes. Leaving them here will only bring disaster to the country sooner or later."
"If a prince rebels, it will be useless to build a nice house."
Someone, however, followed his beard and said, "I think this is a good opportunity. If she thinks everything through, what use would we have?"
Recently, too many people have flocked to Bohai County, and many officials who were originally in the capital have not been assigned positions after arriving in Bohai County. These people are inevitably anxious and are looking for ways everywhere.
But Jiang Tangtang's whereabouts are unpredictable and it's not easy to see her, and it's not easy to impress her.
They have many colleagues who are highly qualified and consider themselves to be excellent, but they can't even get a small official position under Jiang Tangtang.
This is really worrying.
While these Beijing officials were thinking about how to defeat Jiang Tangtang and get a job, Jiang Tangtang was also considering a talent selection.
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