In the imperial study, Zhu Qizhe looked at the memorial in front of him, and his eyebrows were frowned in the shape of Sichuan.

This memorial was submitted by Prince Zhu Yuta. The main problem is one, what should the victims in the northwest do?

The drought in the northwest has not yet eased. Most local people even need to get water they drink from more than ten or even dozens of miles away. It is basically impossible to grow grain. Even sweet potatoes and potatoes cannot be planted. In addition to some people along the river, they can also support themselves. The rest are basically relied on the disaster relief grain from the court.

You should know that Shaanxi, Henan and Shanxi, which were the most severely affected, were densely populated places. Before the drought broke out, the population of the three northwestern provinces was more than 20 million. Even if they had severe droughts and many years of war, the population now was no less than 10 million, and less than one million could farm and support themselves.

In other words, the other more than 9 million have to be provided by the court.

This burden is too great. Even if you only cook some porridge for the victims to prolong your life, it will be two or three million stones of grain in a month!

If you add the food and pay for more than one million troops, as well as the transfer costs of food and grass and the salaries of all officials in the Ming Dynasty, the expenses for Yongsheng Dynasty for one month would be terrifying four or five million stones of grain and four or five million taels of silver.

You should know that the normal tax for the Ming Dynasty since the Wanli Dynasty was only four or five million taels of silver. One month spent the tax for the previous year plus four or five million stones of grain. Who can bear this?

Zhu Yuta really couldn't stand it anymore. Even if there was Dongfan's grain output, even if there were Dongfan's trade income, the West and the South China Sea, he couldn't withstand such a large amount of consumption!

He has been working hard to support Hua Yutang's income for the past few months.

It is not a solution to continue this problem. Hua Yutang hires not a little bit of people. They also have to pay wages, and they also have to develop, and use all the money to provide disaster relief and let them drink the northwest wind?

So, he had to write a memorial and ask his father to think of a solution.

This is not a problem. Zhu Qizhu has already thought about it. After peace in the world, we will start to solve the problem of the victims of the northwest.

The problem is that the Jiannu and the Mongolian Yuan tribes have not yet been pacified, so he has no time to take care of the victims in the northwest.

His method is actually to build water conservancy and try to make use of all the land on both sides of the river so that some of the victims can support themselves. If the rest cannot be supported, they will migrate to the south of Huguang, Jiangxi, Nanzhili and Dongfan.

These seem to be very simple to say, but they are quite troublesome to do, and many things also take up resources for war.

For example, when we are developing water conservancy, there are not many rivers in the northwest. After years of severe drought, many water levels have dropped below the riverbed. Most of the original manpower water trucks and water trucks driven by flowing water are no longer available, and water trucks driven by steam engines are needed.

The entire northwest has a huge area and involves water conservancy facilities of millions of people. How many steam engines, boilers, pipes, iron barrels and other accessories will be needed? Once the water conservancy construction begins, the production of ammunition will probably stop.

Once the ammunition production stops, this battle will basically be impossible, because their main advantages are muskets, artillery and sky-blasting thunder. If they rely on hand-to-hand combat, the casualties will be incalculable.

For example, when migrating disaster victims, he could not give orders and let others leave by themselves.

You should know that if someone brings his family, he has to bring all his belongings. The speed is definitely scary and he can walk at most twenty or thirty miles a day. The distance from northwest to Huguang, Jiangxi, Nanzhili and other places is thousands of miles at any time.

In other words, if the victims are allowed to walk by themselves, they are likely to be unable to walk for several months, they will die of exhaustion, illness, or even cause trouble on the road.

Therefore, it is best to send people to help with carriages when migrating disaster victims. Millions of disaster victims need at least tens of thousands of carriages and hundreds of thousands of people to help or maintain order, so that there will be no problems with migration.

At this moment, hundreds of thousands of people were needed to guard the border, and the chariots were even more powerful tools for dealing with cavalry. How could he send migrant victims?

This problem is really a headache!

He has more than this headache now, and the train problem also makes him extremely troubled.

After all, he had never built a train. It was really difficult to build it. The problem with the steering device last time was solved after more than ten days of hard work, but there were a bunch of problems followed by, such as carriage connection, material strength, brake system, etc., and the problems were one after another.

In short, even if it is the simplest train, it will take at least half a year to create samples, and there is still a problem of mass production. It will take at least one year to create enough trains to transport grain and grass.

Based on the current consumption, this year it will be more than 50 million stones of grain and more than 50 million taels of silver. He will probably lose all his money. Where will the grain and money come from to calm down the north and solve the problems of the victims?

He frowned and thought for a while, took out the map and looked at it for a long time, but finally decided to migrate the victims first.

The victims in Shaanxi migrated nearby to Hanzhong, Nanyang and Yunyang, where water transportation is developed, and at least half of the money for transporting grain can be saved.

The victims of Henan migrated to Huguang and Nanzhili nearby. Henan already had the border with Huguang and Nanzhili, and the distance to migrate was the closest. Moreover, Huguang and Nanzhili were large granaries, so it would be no problem to take over the victims of Henan Province.

The victims of Jiangxi had to migrate to Zhili nearby. It just so happened that he was going to build a railway at this time, which required a lot of labor. Men, women, young and old could make do with it. Those who could not lift the rails could lift the sleepers, and those who could not lift the sleepers could dig stones, or even sit on the ground with a hammer and knock the gravel.

In short, millions of disaster victims in Shanxi can almost arrange something for them to do when they migrate to Northern Zhili.

In this way, the construction of the railway can be accelerated, and the victims can find some work to support themselves, so as to save them from always giving free food to provide relief, which makes them all become lazy. Even if the natural disaster is over, it will be troublesome.

As for the construction of water conservancy, we can only take it slowly. The production of ammunition must not be stopped. At most, it can squeeze out half of its production capacity to build components of the water truck.

With his order, an unprecedented migration began.

This large migration involved tens of millions of people, and most of the victims in the three northwestern provinces were among the migrations.

Most of the population in Shaanxi is migrating to Hanzhong, Nanyang and Yunyang. They are familiar with this road and don’t need to worry too much.

Most of the population in Henan is migrating to Huguang and Nanzhili. In the past, they wanted to farm and support themselves in these fish and rice towns, but the court did not allow it. Now the court not only took the initiative to let him move, but also prepared the cultivated land for them. They naturally went there happily.

As for the victims in Shanxi, all those who were willing to migrate were basically taken to Northern Zhili.

Although the railway outside the pass cannot be built at this moment, the railway between Tongzhou, Xuanfu Town, Jizhou Town and Shanhaiguan can be built.

Zhuqizi was preparing to build a small circle of railways to connect Xuanfu Town, Jizhou Town, Shanhaiguan and the Grand Canal in Tongzhou. In this way, it would be much more convenient to transport grain, grass, supplies and troop sources.

Next, as long as the train is built, he basically doesn't have to worry about Jiannu's invasion from Xuanfu Town and Jizhou Town.
Chapter completed!