Li Zhang followed Wang Dujian into the disaster camp, and saw that the camp was full of wounded and hungry people. Even the innocent and cute children were left with only numb faces. Some of them dragged their injured hands and feet to beg for Li Zhang. The dry eyes were full of hunger.

Li Zhang is also a father, and of course he felt very distressed when he looked at these poor children. However, this time they moved forward lightly and did not bring any food at all. The supplies were still blocked behind, so even if they wanted to help, they were powerless, so they could only make up their minds and strode through this area.

Wang Dujian took Li Zhang and soon came to a shed supported by wooden boards, rags and thatchs. He saw an old man with gray hair lying on a simple floor, and an old woman was taking care of him next to him.

"Zu Zhizhou, Your Majesty has sent Dingbei Hou to come!" Wang Dujian shouted excitedly after coming in. As a result, the old man who was originally lying on the bed sat up all of a sudden. The old woman next to her glared at Wang Dujian with some angrily, but when she saw Li Zhang, she bowed slightly, and then the enemy plane retreated. Although the old woman looked haggard and her clothes were torn, the material was not bad. She seemed to be the family of Zu Zhizhou.

"Sir, please see the Marquis of Dingbei!" The old man on the floor was also forced to salute Li Zhang at this time. Although he had never seen Li Zhang, he had heard of Li Zhang's name for a long time. He had sent people everywhere to ask for help before, and the people who calculated the time to rescue him should be almost here, but he did not expect that the court would send Li Zhang, an important minister, to come.

"There is no need to be too polite to the magistrate Zu, lie down quickly!" Li Zhang immediately stepped forward to support him when he saw Zu Zhizhou's appearance. At this time, he also found that Zu Zhizhou's right leg was covered with a wooden board, and there were many scars on his face, and he was even more haggard.

"Ancestor knows that your legs are fine, right?" Li Zhang helped the other party lie down, and then asked again.

"Don't mention, the house collapsed during the earthquake and my leg was broken by the beam. I don't know if it can be recovered in the future?" Zu Zhizhou also smiled miserably at this time. In fact, his injuries were second. The key was that one of his sons, two daughters, and some other relatives died in the earthquake, which greatly hit his mental state. In addition, the lack of medical treatment and medicine here made his injuries recover very slowly.

Li Zhang sighed again when he heard this. He had just heard Wang Dujian talk about the situation at Zu Zhizhou's home on the road, but at this time the state affairs were the most important, so he also asked again: "Zu Zhizhou, the supplies for the court's rescue are outside, but the official road is blocked and it needs to be cleaned before it can be brought in. As long as the supplies from the court arrive, you will definitely be fine!"

Zu Zhizhou was shocked when he heard Li Zhang's words. They were also suffering during this period. In addition to the external conditions such as hunger, the most important thing was that they cut off contact with the outside world and did not know whether the court would send people to rescue him. As time went by, this mental torment became more serious. Now there was finally a definite news, which made them feel hope, and hope was the most precious thing under such a disaster.

Now the magistrate Zu cheered up and also told Li Zhang in detail about the current situation in Xinzhou. Needless to say, the entire city was completely destroyed and half of it was flooded. If you want to rebuild it in the future, you can only find another place, so the most important thing is the surviving people.

According to statistics from the Zu Zhizhou, there are now more than 9,000 victims in this settlement, but the specific numbers cannot be counted, because every day, people die of injuries, illness, accidents or hunger, and some people flee without permission because they do not see hope, so they can only count a rough number.

Moreover, these more than 9,000 people had no food or medicine, so they could only send people to the ruins in the city to search for food and medicine every day, but this material was not enough for 9,000 people to consume. This also led to the turmoil among the people of the disaster victims. A little disturbance could make the entire camp mess. For this reason, the remaining officials of the Zu Zhizhou were also worried.

"How is the situation in the city? There should be people living under the ruins?" Li Zhang was silent for a moment after hearing Zu Zhizhou's words, and finally asked a very sensitive question.

"Someone must be alive. Yesterday, Wangdujian and others rescued a mother and daughter. However, the situation in the city was too complicated. Half of the city was flooded. Most of the granaries in Xinzhou City were built on the flooded side. We often send people to the rest, mainly to find food and medicine. If someone asks for help, they will try their best to rescue people. However, almost everyone among the victims was injured, and there is only a thousand manpower that can be used every day. These people need to take care of the wounded and protect the camp. In this way, even fewer people can be sent out, and there is no way to rescue the whole city." Zu Zhizhou said again with a sad look on his face.

Li Zhang frowned when he heard this, and pondered for a moment and immediately said, "I heard from the royal capital that some victims ran to the nearby hills to occupy the mountains and became kings. From time to time, they would come to plunder the victims. How many of them are there? Is it a big threat?"

This time, without Zu Zhizhou's answer, Wang Dujian next to him rushed to speak: "There are about three or four hundred victims, and most of them are young and strong men. They robbed a lot of women and ran to the mountain before. Although there are many people in our disaster camp, there are too few people who can use them, and the settlement is too large and they cannot be prevented at all, so their threat is also great."

When Li Zhang heard that there were only three or four hundred people, he felt relieved because he brought two hundred imperial guards and a fierce general named Wild Dog. It should not be a problem to clear out these people. After all, although they are quite large, they are all a group of disaster victims with no organization. The soldiers of the imperial guards are fully armed. If even these disaster victims cannot be dealt with, it would be ridiculous.

Thinking of this, Li Zhang immediately said to Wangdujian: "Wangdujian, I want to organize people to enter the city to search and rescue the people who may still survive. However, before this, we must clean up the victims who occupy the mountains and become kings. You have also seen the two hundred soldiers I brought just now. Do you think these soldiers can eliminate the other party?"

"It's certainly no problem. Those victims have no weapons at all. At most, they only have some waist knives. The leader is just a butcher who has practiced martial arts. The last general is willing to lead the way and take the lead for Dingbei Hou!" Wang Dujian immediately shouted excitedly when he heard Li Zhang's words. He had long wanted to wipe out the victims who had become bandits, but unfortunately there was no soldiers available in his hands. Now he can finally get what he wished.

After asking about the situation in Xinzhou, Li Zhang asked about the situation of local officials. After all, if you want to manage these victims well, it is not enough to rely on Li Zhang alone. You must rely on the power of local officials, but the results are very unoptimistic. Although there are some officials who survived the entire Xinzhou officialdom, most of them were injured like Zu Zhizhou. There are very few people who can move freely like Wang Dujian, let alone stand up to help Li Zhang manage the victims.

"Marquis Dingbei, since you have brought people here, should you summon the victims to announce the news? In this way, if the victims have hope in their hearts, people's hearts will definitely be settled?" In the end, Zu Zhizhou suddenly suggested.

Li Zhang thought about it for a moment but shook his head and said, "This matter is not urgent. After the bandits are wiped out tomorrow, it will not be too late to announce this news. This will make it more stable for the people. Then I will organize another group of people to go to the city to search and rescue the people!"

When he heard Li Zhang say this, Zu Zhizhou felt it was reasonable. That night, Li Zhang was resting in this disaster camp, but during dinner, he found that most of the victims were fed with wild vegetables and could not see a few grains of food in their rice bowls. Even officials like Wangdujian ate the same food. Only the wounded soldiers like Zu Zhizhou could still see some real grain in their bowls.

Although Li Zhang and the others brought some dry food, even if they were all divided, it would not be enough for each of these victims to eat. Moreover, the imperial guards would have to suppress bandits tomorrow, so Li Zhang could only order the imperial guards to distribute the dry food, but he took out all his dry food and gave part of it to Zu Zhizhou. After all, he had to recover from his injuries when he was old, and the other part was distributed to the children who had been following him.
Chapter completed!