The corners of Hong Chengchou's mouth twitched, and he looked at Xu Rencheng mockingly and said, "Does Xu Zhizhou really regard this official as a bodhisattva in the temple?" Or do you think that what happened in Puzhou can really be hidden?

To the south of Puzhou is Zhongtiao Mountain, although this mountain is steep and there are few people in the mountain, but the depths of the mountain are full of giant forests. These giant trees are naturally worthless in the deep mountains, but after being transported out of the mountain, they are a tree with more than ten gold, and the wealthy and giant rooms have always been eager to do so.

If these big trees are discharged from the Yellow River to the lower reaches, whether it is Luoyang or Tongzhou, the price can be doubled several times.

Pull these Shaanxi disaster victims to cut down the giant trees in the mountains, firstly, because their wages are low, and secondly, if something really happens, these outsiders can still turn the sky in Puzhou?

Xu Zhizhou, this official also asks you, how much wood have you let people cut down in Zhongtiao Mountain these days, and how many percent of it has been transported to the camp? ”

Xu Rencheng's forehead suddenly broke out with sweat, and he opened his mouth, but he never made a sound.

Hong Chengchou didn't give him a chance to defend himself, and continued: "According to the relief law, an adult man is allocated one pound of rations every day, and adult women, the elderly, and the sick are 12 taels, and minors are six taels. How much did you deduct from the Puzhou County Ya?

Not to mention, under the pretext of letting the people in those camps manage themselves, you let the scoundrels and scum among the victims take control of the camps, and then select young men and women to sell to local families as servants, which is a great crime.

This official checked the Da Ming Law and found that Xu Zhizhou committed these crimes, ten heads are not enough to cut off.

Please also ask Xu Zhizhou to teach the official, what should the official do in this situation? ”

Xu Zhizhou looked around and found that except for the two governor's personal soldiers guarding the staircase, there was no trace of anyone else in the building.

Without hesitation, he knelt down in front of Hong Chengchou, hugged the other party's left calf with both hands, and pleaded while defending himself: "Please be aware of it, even if you have the courage to do it, you don't dare to do it."

The humble position is just a seven-grade main hall, and there are two or three governors at home in Puzhou City, and there are even more families who have been out of the prefect and county.

These local gentry have always been in the same spirit, and if there is an occasional incident, they can ask for Austrian aid with a letter. In other places, this county is called the county parent official; But in this city, she can only be wronged to be an angry daughter-in-law.

In the case of logging, the county also thought that it would not allow these victims to have nothing to do, and it would be easy to breed trouble by staying idle in the camp, so it agreed to the request of those big households.

As for the sale of good and lowly and the deduction of rations, the lowly office has absolutely not participated in it. This is all because the county officials colluded with a few big families to deceive their humble positions. Please also be aware of the poor students' suffering for ten years. ”

Hong Chengchou didn't plan to do anything with this Puzhou governor, he had just been promoted from Shaanxi Senator to Shanxi Governor, this step was a bit big, and there were no reliable helpers around him, so he urgently needed the support of local officials and gentry in Shanxi.

He had been silent about the chaos of the resettlement of the victims in Puzhou, just to let this incident ferment and be able to use it for his own use.

By the way, he also wanted to see if the careerists mixed with the victims would jump out and expose themselves to instigating the victims to make trouble in this situation.

Although he was appointed by Chongzhen and became the governor of Shanxi, Hong Chengchou was not carried away by this.

Whatever the emperor's decree was, he wanted to see if the ministers really agreed with the emperor's ideas.

He didn't want to rashly stand on the same position as the emperor, and the food policy issued by Chongzhen was indeed a good strategy to save the time.

But any policy requires the determination of those in higher positions and the ability of lower officials to execute. And the policies issued by the emperor may not be his own real thoughts, but may also be the opinions of those around him.

Without understanding Chongzhen's true intentions and determination, he was not willing to rashly stand up and support it, a policy that obviously offended the majority of the local gentry.

But after waiting for a long time, he finally determined. Whether it is the gentry of Shaanxi, Shanxi or Henan, they all look very stupid in the game with the emperor.

In particular, the gentry in Henan simply thought that they were not dying fast enough, and they would actually want to incite public opinion to fight against the imperial court. But they obviously didn't think about how to end up after provoking the incident.

Moreover, these gentry thought that if they made a slight disturbance in the locality, the young emperor who had just ascended the throne would compromise with them. But the fact is that the emperor was taking advantage of this opportunity to sweep away the roots of these gentry in the countryside.

The gentry of Shanxi, because of the unscrupulous actions of the gentry of Henan, quickly divided the opposition voices raised in the court. And the pressure of the Mongolian army in Datong Pass also left them no longer able to take care of a temporary food policy.

Shanxi's gentry are mainly concentrated in the Hedong region on the edge of the Yellow River, which is located in the Yuncheng Basin, with rivers and fertile land. Since ancient times, there have been many great families.

When the Mongol army approached outside the Datong Pass and the troops in the southern part of Shanxi were drawn north, the clans of Hedong immediately found that their situation was not much better than that of those from Henan.

Because of the drought this year, the flow of the Yellow River has been greatly reduced, and many ferries between Qin and Jin can even swim through. On the opposite side of the Yellow River, which flows through Hedong, more than 100,000 Shaanxi victims are gathering there, trying to cross the Yellow River to escape.

Once these disorderly victims cross the Yellow River, the outnumbered victims who have left their hometowns will soon become outcasts.

If hundreds of thousands of displaced people poured into Hedong, the effect would be no different from the crossing of locusts.

At this time, the gentry of Hedong realized that if they could guarantee their property with a little food, the deal was still cost-effective.

And with this railway plan supported by Shanxi businessmen, it can also give them a lot more money in the name.

Hong Chengchou, who had been watching for a long time, finally determined that he was going to stand on that side, and Shanxi Bank also came to him to ask for help in order to start the construction of the railway as soon as possible.

These businessmen mainly hope that Hong Chengchou can promote disaster relief operations as soon as possible and quickly let the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi cross the Yellow River.

Whether it is mining, iron smelting, or the construction of railways, a large number of people are required. Although the local population of Shanxi is also quite prosperous, Shanxi people, like Huizhou people, prefer to change their family's financial situation through business.

Anyone who has many sons in the family will choose to send them to a certain business to be an apprentice, and each business also likes to use such well-known villagers.

In this situation, although Shanxi has a large population, there is very little surplus labor. Moreover, these businessmen did not dare to be too harsh on the local villagers, so as not to ruin their own reputation.

But the disaster victims from Shaanxi are different, as long as these victims can survive, they can recruit a large number of people for a few mouthfuls of food. And the people of Qin are hard-working and hard-working, and they are more patient than the people of Shanxi to live in coolie work, and they will not run away after a few days.

In particular, after the palace took a stake in Shanxi's coal and iron industry, a large number of cheap laborers recruited from Shaanxi Province more than doubled the output of several coal mines in Yangcheng, but the cost was reduced by 60%.

This change immediately attracted the attention of Shanxi merchants, and when the palace discovered coal and pyrite in the northwest of Hejin County, where Longmendu is located, and limestone and iron ore in the northern area of Luliang Mountain, he immediately recruited people from Shaanxi to open up the mineral deposits in this area.

The section above the Longmen of the Yellow River has a narrow river channel, a rapid current, and many reefs, so it is impossible to sail, but the water flow has suddenly opened up under the Longmen, and the water flow has eased down, so this section can be sailed.

The coal, smelted iron, fired lime and cement excavated in Hejin by the palace can be easily transported to Shaanxi, Henan, Shanxi Puzhou and other regions downstream through the Yellow River.

Compared with the coal and iron transported from Yangcheng and Taiyuan to Puzhou, it is much faster and cheaper, and now because of the disaster in Shaanxi, a large number of people have to leave their hometowns, and a large number of people have gathered in the plains along the Yellow River and Weishui.

Not to mention food, the daily fuel used by these victims is an astronomical amount, and the Guanzhong area is already densely populated, so most of the places have been reclaimed, and there are not many forests for firewood.

When the victims gathered in the area, the forests were quickly taken over by the victims, and the fuel used by the citizens of the city became a big problem. In the beginning, coal from Puzhou, Shanxi Province, became the most favored cargo in several large cities such as Xi'an.

But soon, the Hejin coal, which was of better quality and had been processed, immediately overwhelmed the coal mines transported from the Puzhou area, and there was even a tendency to spread from Puzhou to the entire Yuncheng Basin.

The lime that appeared next became a necessary thing for the disinfection of the private areas of the disaster, and the iron tools supplemented the problem of insufficient water control tools for the excavation of canals in Shaanxi, and cement was an indispensable item for the construction of canals.

Although the people of Shaanxi do not understand what water evaporation is, it is a visible fact that the canals built with cement mixed with sand and gravel are stronger than the original earthen canals.

Because of the strong water seepage of the earthen canal, the water has not yet flowed into the ground, so the "land lord" must be "drunk" half of it first. Therefore, the earthen canal cannot be far away, and it must be built wide to ensure that water can flow through the channel to the fields.

However, after using this kind of cement channel, which is basically not permeable, the watered land on the Guanzhong Plain can immediately be tripled.

This kind of canal, which uses new materials, can not only transport more water to the field, but also build branch canals to better distribute the amount of water in the field and improve the efficiency of water use.

In particular, some of the inferior iron smelted in Kawazu (the removal of sulfur is not sufficient), although it cannot be used as a tool, it is more than enough to be used as a small iron gate for discharging water from these channels.

Kawazu is a small prefecture with a less populated mountainous area to the north and a more populated plain area to the south. Because there is a Longmendu in the territory, the county is quite prosperous. However, the population of Hejin County is just over 20,000.

But since the introduction of Shaanxi province's victims to develop industrial and mining industries, the local population has doubled within a few months.

However, Shanxi businessmen will not care about this change, they care about what is produced in Hejin, and the central and southern parts of Shanxi can also be produced, but just because of the unfavorable transportation, it cannot compete with this small county that has just emerged.

Although these businessmen did not have the courage to go to the Kawazu Tong Palace to grab the territory, they really began to pay attention to the role of the railway.

They deliberately went to Yangcheng to see a few coal mines transporting coal on a short section of the railway, so the original attitude of the Jin merchants who did not care about the construction of the railway quickly became enthusiastic.

If you want to build a railway, cheap labor is indispensable. The new governor of Shanxi, who was in charge of Shanxi's customs defense, was cautious in screening the victims to enter the Jin, and naturally it did not meet their expectations.