Chapter 228
"Old Man Chen, how many statues of the Junior Preceptor do you still have today? I've been waiting for a good while, and I must invite one back home today no matter what.
My wife is giving birth in the next couple of days. If I don't invite the Junior Preceptor home, I won't have peace of mind!"
A man in the crowd wiped the sweat from his forehead, desperately squeezing to the front, and asked Old Man Chen in the shop with an anxious look.
Someone behind him pulled him back and said, "Liu Tietou, get up. The Junior Preceptor is in charge of farming. For your wife's delivery, you should pray to Madam Jinhua. What's the use of seeking out our Junior Preceptor?"
"Exactly! The Junior Preceptor is the god of grain. Tietou, don't add extra burdens to the gods."
Someone "kindly" pointed the way for Liu Tietou, "Tietou, in Oil Press Alley, Mafuji has statues of Goddess Jinhua. Go there to invite one.
The Ma family's carving craftsmanship has been passed down for several generations, so you can go invite one with peace of mind."
Liu Tietou shook his head like a rattle drum. "No! Old Man Chen is someone who has seen the Junior Preceptor up close. I trust the statues he carves!"
Who cares if you trust him or not? We trust him ourselves!
Old Man Chen was truly lucky. With so many people around, he somehow managed to squeeze to the very front and even got the chance to kowtow to the Junior Preceptor. Now, he doesn't even need to run his grocery store anymore. Just by carving the statues of the Junior Preceptor full-time, he can feed his whole family.
Such scenes of "inviting gods" were constantly taking place in the villages and towns surrounding the capital of Shangjing, and there was a trend of it slowly spreading outward.
And along with the popularity of inviting gods, "A Hundred Ways to Eat Potatoes" also became widely circulated in the streets, describing the deliciousness of potatoes as something found only in heaven and unmatched on earth.
There were no less than a hundred poems written to describe the delectable taste of potatoes. As for the poems, they were naturally penned by the esteemed officials who had seen and smelled them but had never actually tasted them.
Many down-to-earth verses were even compiled into nursery rhymes by thoughtful individuals for children to sing.
"System, the sensation in my divine soul has become more distinct these past two days."
[Host, this means that your words from that day were not spoken in vain. Many people remembered your appearance. Now, the statues and portraits of you on the market don't differ much from your actual self.]
If things continued this way, when the once-in-a-century great disaster in the eighth year of Yuankang truly arrived, the host might not even need many rain-summoning talismans and could resolve most of it relying on her own power.
"Have you prepared the prescription?" Yue Fuguang didn't think that far ahead, but instead focused on the upcoming task.
[Rest assured, my data has generated the formula based on the existing types of herbs in Great Yan, and the selected herbs are all the most common and ordinary ones.]
"Then let's begin!"
Meanwhile, in the imperial court, the Minister of Revenue, Dong Qianli, was reporting to Emperor Mingxi on the statistics of the money and grain expended by the imperial court for the snow disaster earlier that year.
The expenditure of nearly one million taels of silver was the amount spent even after early preparations had been made to reduce losses.
In the original timeline, the state treasury was empty. Even if the imperial court had taken out more than half of its silver, it still would have been unable to provide relief to all the disaster victims. The financial crisis caused the relief efforts to lose momentum, which consequently triggered multiple rebellions.
After reporting the expenses, Dong Qianli continued, "Your Majesty, during the early stages, the freezing weather made excavation difficult, leaving many corpses still buried under the collapsed houses.
Now that spring has arrived and the weather is warming up, although various prefectures and counties have intensified their excavation efforts, due to limited manpower, the dead cannot be buried in time. This humble subject fears that this might lead to... an epidemic!"
Although Dong Qianli was extremely reluctant to say those two words, he had consulted the Imperial Academy of Medicine and also had years of experience dealing with various natural disasters.
He knew full well that those corpses were the source of disease. If not handled promptly, the consequences would be unimaginable.
[Master, after a great disaster, a great plague is bound to follow.]
Emperor Mingxi's heart tightened. Dong Qianli's speculation was not unreasonable to begin with, and now even the Divine Artifact Lord was saying so. Emperor Mingxi could not help but wonder if this had occurred in the original timeline...
"Not enough manpower? I remember the refugees should still be in the temporarily built relief shelters, right? Aren't these all ready-made laborers?
Is the imperial court just feeding them watery porridge every day for free? Don't they know how to provide relief in exchange for labor? Those who want to eat their fill will naturally work actively.
As for those who want to be lazy and refuse to work, just give them enough water to feel full so they won't starve to death. It's such a simple matter."
Yue Fuguang felt that her current way of speaking sounded quite like the bosses of certain companies in her past life. However, if she didn't do this, those hardworking people who originally could have eaten their fill would be dragged down as well.
If this dragged on any longer and the epidemic became rampant, resulting in the deaths of too many people like before, it would affect the calculation of her task points. Therefore, she had to intervene in this matter.
Especially the children and the elderly. In these few prefectures, the population loss after that epidemic almost caused a generational gap.
Losing a massive amount of the population even before the drought arrived was absolutely unacceptable!
Relief in exchange for labor? Dong Qianli's eyes lit up. It wasn't that he hadn't thought of it, but the laws and regulations of the imperial court were set as such.
It had never been done in previous years, so naturally, he didn't dare to propose it lightly.
But now that it was proposed by the Junior Preceptor, he couldn't help but look up at His Majesty. Emperor Mingxi subtly nodded his head.
[Exactly. The roads here are so poor. You're feeding these people for nothing, yet you don't know how to take the opportunity to pick out some hardworking and willing ones to repair the roads.
You should also let them earn more rations for their families, which is much better than starving together with those lazy bums.]
Everyone looked embarrassed. Since ancient times, disaster relief had always been like this: the imperial court distributed porridge, and the commoners awaited aid.
They had never thought of using this labor force to do anything else.
After all, building bridges and paving roads had traditionally been done by the imperial court assigning corvée labor to the commoners. The officials responsible for disaster relief had no authority to do these things, as it involved issues of jurisdiction.
If the Junior Preceptor hadn't pointed it out today, even if someone had thought of it, such as Dong Qianli and the others, they wouldn't have dared to speak up easily.
"By the way, Little Zhu, you just said that after a great disaster, a great plague is bound to follow. Did you mean that an epidemic will break out in the upcoming prefectures and counties of Great Yan?"
[Master guessed correctly. Because the cases of the four major families were solved in time, the relief efforts for Great Yan's snow disaster this time were also timely, and far fewer commoners died compared to the original timeline.
However, just like in the original timeline, the epidemic is inevitable! I just don't know if it will be like before, where so many people died from the epidemic that nine out of ten houses in many villages and towns were left empty!]
The epidemic is inevitable? Nine out of ten houses empty!
Hearing these words, many officials stumbled on their feet. A few elderly officials would have definitely fallen if they hadn't been supported by their colleagues beside them.
If one were to ask what they feared the most in governing the country, the plague would definitely take a spot in the top three.
The main reason was that the plague killed too many people, was too difficult to control, and it didn't distinguish between the noble and the lowly! Whoever caught it would die!
Emperor Mingxi's face turned even more ashen. He had just obtained high-yield fine seeds and was preparing to accumulate strength relying on the immortal grain, and then fully display his ambitions.
He hadn't even been happy for a few days before he was suddenly told that a plague would break out in Great Yan, and the kind that would leave nine out of ten houses empty at that. Who could endure this!
He didn't erupt on the spot solely because the accumulated prestige of the two ancestors was too heavy, and there were also a few mature and prudent officials who reacted first, staring at him with burning gazes.
Emperor Mingxi: I don't dare to move, I completely don't dare to move!
Ahem! Of course, We are not afraid of them. After all, these people are the pillars of the imperial court, Our right and left hands. Their opinions cannot be ignored, cannot be ignored...