Before Malhun could sort out the conflict between Alinga and Yinzhen, a large number of refugees suddenly appeared in the suburbs of Beijing.
The first people to discover the victims were sanitation workers in the suburbs of Beijing.
It was still pitch dark when Old Man Li knocked on the door of the Urban Construction Office.
The yamen runners on duty here were a little unhappy. Who would cause trouble so early in the cold winter?
Chen opened the door with a curse, and when he saw Old Man Li, his expression did not ease much. Although he was a constable, he had some power, and although Old Man Li was also on the government payroll, he worked hard to earn money, which was nothing compared to him who patrolled every day.
"What's the rush?"
Old man Li forced a flattering smile on his red face from the cold.
"Master Chen is on duty today. The thing is, I went out to work today and ran into a lot of refugees on the street. They were all huddled in corners. They're bound to affect business outside when daybreak comes, so I..."
Most of the sanitation workers here are residents of the residential area, and Old Man Li is no exception. There were five or six refugees at his doorstep. When they saw he opened the door, they immediately surrounded him and asked for food. It was only when he realized the situation was not right that he called his two sons to guard the door.
He himself ran to the yamen to report the news.
"Are there refugees? Take me to see them..."
When Chen Da heard the sensitive word "refugee", the weariness on his face disappeared immediately.
Ever since residential areas were built in the suburbs of Beijing, the number of refugees has suddenly decreased a lot.
Even beggars, as long as they are willing to work hard on the construction site, can earn some money and rent a room or a bed in the homes of nearby people to shelter from the wind and rain.
Therefore, once a large number of refugees appear, they basically come from other places. If he does not take it seriously, if something happens, not only him, but also his immediate superior will not be able to take the responsibility.
Chen Da followed Old Man Li to the place where he found the refugees. He discovered that there were indeed many ragged refugees in the alleys of the residential area, and they were huddled in groups of three or five in the corners.
Chen Da just took a quick look and then quickly returned to the yamen to report the news.
There were refugees in the alleys he walked through, and refugees also gathered at the entrance of the alley behind him. He roughly estimated that there were several hundred people. There were only more than fifty people working in their yamen. If a conflict broke out, they would not be able to handle it at all.
As a result, this incident caused an uproar at the morning court.
The Chinese New Year is less than half a month away, and at this time, refugees have appeared in the suburbs of Beijing. It is obvious that someone concealed the disaster for fear of being held accountable.
So today's morning court session was rare and lasted only two incense sticks.
Kangxi took advantage of this brief period of time to scold the entire Tongzhengsi so badly that they couldn't even raise their heads. Then he handed the task of thoroughly investigating the refugees to Prince Cheng and left in anger.
Yinzhi accepted the assignment and after the morning court session, he took his men to the outskirts of the city to investigate the case.
Yinreng first went to the Zhanshi Mansion and called all the officials there. A group of people marched out of the imperial city and headed straight for the outer city.
In fact, disasters occur on this continent every year, but Yinreng was only impressed by a few of them.
This time, Yinreng didn't have much memory, which means that for the court, this snow disaster was just a small-scale snow disaster.
But this "small" is only compared to the vast world of the Qing Dynasty. If it is placed on every citizen who is suffering, it would be a huge pain that would make the sky fall and the earth collapse.
When leaving the imperial city, Yinreng ran into Yinzhen who was also going to the outskirts of the city to gather information.
A hint of obscurity flashed across Yinreng's eyes.
For the past six months, Yinzhen has been recruiting soldiers under his banner, but Yinreng has not interfered too much or taken the initiative to get close to him.
Even though he was certain that Yinzhen had his own selfish motives, he could endure this selfish motive if Yinzhen could make the people's lives a little more comfortable after he came to power.
When he met Yinzhen when he went out of the city today, he was actually relieved.
The fact that he could personally go out of the city to investigate today proves that Yinzhen cares about the common people.
When they arrived at the outskirts of the city, the officers and soldiers had already gathered all the refugees and were leading them to the wasteland further west.
Yinreng stood at the front of the car, watching the ragged refugees slowly walking forward. There were also women in the crowd holding newborn babies. Just looking at them made people feel heartbroken.
"Second brother."
Yinreng withdrew his gaze and jumped off the carriage.
"I roughly estimated that there are only about 600 to 700 refugees. That's not a lot. Let's find someone to give out porridge to first..."
Before he finished speaking, he saw dozens of people coming out of the residential area ahead, some pushing carts, others carrying shoulder poles, and chasing after the group of refugees.
Yinzhen was also a little stunned when he saw this. Are these people... going to give porridge to the refugees?
This refreshed his understanding.
He had seen porridge stalls before, but without exception, they were only run by wealthy families in the city or government officials. After all, ordinary people had a hard life and did not have any extra money to do charity.
Yinsi looked at the clothes of the group of people. They were all wearing coarse linen clothes. Although there were few patches on them, they were all dusty and stained. They didn't look like rich people at all.
However, before he could figure out his puzzlement, many people came out of the residential area pushing carts. It seemed that they were also going to help the victims. Some even brought out their own straw for burning fires in the winter.
Yinzhen was deeply touched.
"Looks like I don't have to work for now..."
Yinreng's brows relaxed, and he turned around and got back on the carriage.
"Fourth Brother, I'll go back to the palace and ask the Emperor to temporarily transport the cement from Chengde here. Go find Nineth Brother and get some linen!"
"yes!"
Yinzhen responded and the two of them went their separate ways.
In this era, the loss rate of refugees was very alarming. Yinreng didn't know where these refugees came from, but he was sure that these hundreds of refugees had probably survived by stepping on the corpses of thousands or tens of thousands of people. He couldn't bear to see any mishap happen to these few remaining people.
It only took Yinzhi one morning to find out the origins of the refugees.
These disaster victims were all from Shengjing. More than two months ago, a snowstorm hit central Fengtian and Jinzhou, and most of the people's houses were collapsed. Even for those that were not collapsed, the doors were blocked by the wind and snow, and they could not get out of the houses at all.
The imperial court was slow to respond, and if they didn't make plans early, they would either freeze to death or starve to death in the long run.
That's why such a large number of disaster victims flocked to Kyoto.
Before Yinzhi had time to report the information he had found out, Kangxi had already received a letter of apology from Jin Nai, the prefect of Fengtian Prefecture.
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