On August 20, Li Zhi's relief stations for disaster victims in Shandong were all opened.
In every town and city in Shandong, Li Zhi set up relief stations. With the wooden waist tags issued by Li Zhi, the people received sweet potatoes every three days to relieve the disaster.
In the two months of July and August, Li Zhi had already hired tax collectors to collect commercial taxes in advance. However, the first thing the tax collectors did after taking office was not to collect taxes, but to go deep into the grassroots villages and city streets to collect taxes on all the people.
After registering the identity, Li Zhi also hired local carpenters to make waist badges for the heads of each household, which corresponded to the registered account books.
With these registration measures in place, Li Zhi was able to accurately distribute disaster relief food to the people. Each common person was given a daily quota of one catty and eight taels of sweet potatoes. In the Ming Dynasty, one catty and sixteen taels was equivalent to one and a half catties.
I go to the relief station to collect sweet potatoes every three days, and each time I receive four kilograms and eight taels for each person in my family.
With waist cards and account books, there is no such thing as false claim or over-receipt. Every citizen can get his or her own share of disaster relief food. Although one and a half pounds of sweet potatoes is only equivalent to the calories of half a pound of rice, it is far from being full.
It’s still far from enough, but it can ensure that people will not starve to death. Moreover, it is basically impossible to plant crops after September in Shandong, and farmers do not need to work. On the premise of reducing the amount of exercise, one and a half kilograms of sweet potatoes can help the victims.
We survived this period of time.
When Li Zhi distributed potatoes to the people, he repeatedly emphasized that sweet potatoes cannot be eaten raw, otherwise they will be extremely difficult to digest. Generally speaking, in order to obtain the highest calories, sweet potatoes are best eaten cooked or roasted.
Sweet potatoes are not considered a good food. Eating too much sweet potatoes will not only cause abdominal distension and burping, but also stimulate the secretion of gastric juice and cause acid water to pour back into the esophagus. However, for the people of Shandong, after a year of severe drought,
The sweet potatoes distributed for free at this time are life-saving treasures. Regardless of whether he feels comfortable eating them, at least he will not starve to death, right?
Some farmers had thought that they would not be able to survive this year, and they had made plans to escape. At this time, they suddenly heard that Li Zhi, the Duke of Tianjin, had begun to distribute sweet potatoes for free. It was like a dying person seeing hope of life.
Everyone was very excited. After winning the badge, the people queued up near the relief station to receive sweet potatoes, and praised the person who handed out the sweet potatoes as a living Bodhisattva.
Li Zhi took advantage of the situation and hung a high flag of the Duke of Jin on each relief station to let the people know that the life-saving kindness was given by him.
After learning that Li Zhi was carrying out disaster relief in Shandong, Cui He also volunteered and followed Li Zhi to Jinan Prefecture to distribute sweet potatoes to the victims of Jinan Prefecture.
Cui He took off her crown as a duchess, put on a pair of coarse clothes, and took a carriage to the relief station in Hedong Township, south of Jinan Prefecture. She first looked around to see how the staff at the relief station distributed sweet potatoes.
Distributing sweet potatoes is very simple. The person cutting the sweet potatoes has already cut the sweet potatoes into one-and-a-half kilogram portions and put them aside. When the person distributing the sweet potatoes comes up, he loudly asks his name and checks his waistband. Then there is a registration person next to him.
Find the household names of the people in the account book, and put a check mark on the account book to indicate that this household has received the sweet potatoes today. The person distributing sweet potatoes will hand over a certain number of sweet potatoes to the people according to the number of people in the household who received the sweet potatoes.
The staff at the relief station are all Fanjiazhuang citizens recruited by Li Zhi. In recent years, Fanjiazhuang has vigorously promoted literacy classes. These citizens are all literate and can do these things easily.
Today is the first day of distribution of sweet potatoes, and the people who received the sweet potatoes were very excited. After receiving the sweet potatoes, these people could not forget to say: "Thank you, Lord, for saving your life!"
Fanjiazhuang citizens who handed out sweet potatoes would correct them: "Wrong! Thank you, Lord Jin!"
"Yes! Thank you Lord Jin!"
Cui He watched for a while and felt that this was a simple matter, so he dismissed a potato-distributing person and went up to distribute the sweet potatoes himself.
Cui He was dressed simply, but the heavily armed guards around Cui He still betrayed Cui He's identity. Twenty guards in chainmail stood aside with sharp swords in their hands, watching eagerly as they came up to receive the sweet potatoes.
civilians. Behind these guards were thirty soldiers of the Huben Division armed with rifles, on high alert.
The momentum was so frightening that the people who received the sweet potatoes did not dare to show their anger. They were respectful when they came to receive the sweet potatoes.
Cui He's maid Ju'er stood aside in silk clothes and said to every citizen who came up to receive the sweet potatoes: "Take it! These are the sweet potatoes given to you by the Duke's wife."
It was okay for the two ignorant people at first. Anyway, they didn't understand what "the Duke's wife" meant. They were illiterate and usually knew about the Duke of Jin who benefited the people. As for the four words "the Duke's wife", they suddenly
Unable to understand what it meant, he lowered his head and took the sweet potato from Cui He, shouted "Thank you, Grandma Guan" and left.
However, the third man who received the sweet potatoes from Cui He had heard the newspaper and knew what the word Madam Guogong meant. As soon as he walked in front of Cui He, he knelt down with a bang, kowtowed and shouted: "Thank you, Madam Guogong."
Help me, sweet potato! We will never forget the kindness of the Duke and his wife!"
It was so embarrassing to kneel down that the hundreds of people behind them all realized what a grand lady the Duke's wife was, and they all knelt down in front of the relief station.
"Young people have met the Duke's wife!"
"The Duke's wife is so kind, God will bless the Duke's wife!"
"The Duke's wife is like a fairy, and she is a perfect match for the Duke!"
Cui He blushed because the people knelt down and stood there stunned for a while. Cui He's maid Ju'er reacted faster and shouted: "Get up! Everyone, get up! Don't talk about these gossips."
, it’s business to come up and get some sweet potatoes to save your life!”
After hearing Ju'er's words, the people gradually got up. They became more and more respectful, and one by one went to Cui He to receive the sweet potatoes.
The seventh sweet potato was handed out, and the person receiving the sweet potato was a little girl dressed in rags. The little girl held up the badge in her hand and showed it to Cui He, and then said: "Grandma Guan, I am Huan Laosi from Huanjia Village, Hedong Township.
Come home, I will receive nine pounds of sweet potatoes."
Cui He looked at the girl who had cute big eyes but was skinny and skinny. He couldn't help but pity her. Cui He handed nine kilograms of sweet potatoes into her hand and said, "Is there only two people in your family? Why do you ask you to come pick up the sweet potatoes?"
"
The little girl blinked her eyes and said: "Grandma Guan, my father and mother died of illness last year. My brother and I are the only ones left in my family. We survived because the adults in the village gave us some leftovers. Since a few days ago,
, there is no leftover food for everyone in the village. We haven’t eaten for three days. If grandma Guan hadn’t given me sweet potatoes, we would have starved to death today.”
When Cui He heard the girl's words, his nose became sore and his eyes became moist.
Cui He took out another three kilograms of sweet potatoes and stuffed them into the little girl, and said: "This is the ration for the Duke and his wife today. We won't eat today, so we will give it to you and your brother. I hope you will have enough for the whole day."
