Water Margin: The opening scene involves assassinating Emperor Huizong of Song and forcibly taking L

"The water conservancy projects in all counties were repaired last year, and two new irrigation canals were dug as part of a work-for-relief program,"

Jiang Zuoyi, the prefect of Yinchuan, pointed to the farmers who were busy with spring plowing and said,

"As the snow begins to melt and water levels gradually recover, we are seizing the opportunity to irrigate the fields these days to avoid another spring drought."

Zhao Ding nodded approvingly, then reminded him, "We should still plant some millet; it might yield some harvest in the event of a severe drought."

"If we plant rice everywhere, we'll all be ruined when there's a drought."

Jiang Zuoyi said, "Last year we brought in millet seeds, and this year each household will plant half of their fields with rice and half with millet."

"Many farmers don't know how to grow millet, so the agricultural officials teach them step by step."

"Excellent," Zhao Ding praised.

Just as Zhao Ding continued to inspect the spring plowing, suddenly flocks of birds circled and cried out in alarm, many field mice and rabbits emerged from the ground, and cats and dogs inside and outside the city also became restless.

Whether officials, civilians, or soldiers, everyone stood frozen in place, looking around in disbelief.

After a long while, Zhao Ding suddenly realized: "In case of an earthquake disaster, I hereby order officials, soldiers and civilians to stay indoors as little as possible for the next half month, and to sleep outdoors in open spaces."

Officials will go around spreading the orders, but whether people will listen is another matter.

Because there were so many strange phenomena, people were still willing to listen that night, but many people inside and outside the city dared not stay at home.

Nothing happened.

The following night, many people stopped staying outside.

On the third night, many officials went back to their rooms to sleep.

Zhao Ding personally inspected the city and its surroundings. When he appeared, officials would call out to the people to come out of their houses, but once he left, they would turn a blind eye.

Fortunately, the earthquake occurred during the day!

The fourth day, mid-morning.

Zhao Ding was working at the Governor's Mansion, which was a converted palace of the Western Xia imperial palace.

Suddenly, the ground shook violently, startling Zhao Ding so much that he grabbed the table and stood up, then quickly crawled under it to take cover.

The palace shook for a while, then the earthquake finally stopped.

Zhao Ding crawled out from under the table and shouted, "Get out! Get out and hide!"

Without him even needing to remind them, the officials of the governor's office had already rushed out, and the streets of the entire Yinchuan city were full of people.

Chapter 3879 Misfortunes Never Come Singly

The military commander, the provincial inspector, the prefect, and the county magistrate arrived one after another with their men, reporting in a panic that more houses had collapsed.

Just when everyone thought it was over, the earth shook again, and this time it was even more violent than before!

Zhao Ding witnessed a house collapse ahead.

He forced himself to calm down, summoned officials from both the military and political systems, and ordered them to immediately appease the people and organize rescue efforts.

All residents inside and outside the city should be quickly moved to open spaces in the suburbs and resettled in wards.

At the same time, brave men were recruited from the common people to dig through the rubble to see if any survivors could be rescued, but no one was allowed to approach houses that had not collapsed.

As for the stationed troops, some are responsible for maintaining public order, while others participate in disaster relief.

"Boom!"

Another, slightly weaker aftershock startled the soldiers and civilians involved in the rescue, who fled to an open area still in shock.

After staying in the suburbs for three days to confirm that there were no more aftershocks, Zhao Ding allowed the soldiers and civilians to return in an orderly manner.

Provincial Surveillance Commissioner Yan Bingxiao ran to Zhao Ding's side and whispered, "The soldiers and civilians from outside need not worry, but the local people are spreading rumors."

"They say the spirits of the past rulers of Western Xia, unwilling to accept the destruction of their dynasty, have returned to seek revenge..."

Zhao Ding, with a serious expression, convened another meeting of military and political officials.

"The top priority right now is disaster relief and saving lives."

"For those whose houses have collapsed, organize manpower as soon as possible to rebuild their homes and absorb the people who have no food through work-for-relief programs."

"The second is burying the corpses. The old people of Western Xia were devout Buddhists and preferred cremation."

"Bury the bodies quickly to prevent a plague after the disaster."

"The third is to guard against rebellion. Those tribal chiefs and herders, whose pastures and lands have been confiscated and divided, are very likely to take the opportunity to spread rumors and start an uprising."

"The fourth is to appease people's hearts. This involves not only providing disaster relief but also using the opportunity to spread propaganda."

"Just say that this earthquake was caused by the collapse of the Western Xia dynasty and the complete severing of its dragon veins."

"After the earthquake, the dragon vein of Western Xia was severed, and Western Xia could never be restored!"

"All disasters and calamities are blamed on the Western Xia. Our Great Ming has come to relieve suffering and rescue people from their calamities."

Yinchuan Prefecture quickly made arrangements for everything, and at the same time, sent these four decrees by messengers on horseback to various prefectures and counties in Ningxia.

The governor's residence in Yinchuan quickly calmed down.

Twenty days later, another earthquake struck, and the epicenter shifted to Xiazhou.

The ground in Xia Prefecture cracked, and springs gushed forth!

Then an unprecedented sandstorm swept through, and yellow sand piled up into dunes twenty meters high.

The sand dunes stretched out like a long dike, burying several thousand people.

Historically, this series of disasters led to widespread banditry in the Western Xia, with rebel armies spreading across nearly half of the country—in Xingqing Prefecture alone, more than 10,000 people died in the earthquake.

If Zhao Yuan had known about this, he certainly wouldn't have sent troops last year, and would have waited until after various disasters before taking action.

We've been given a hot potato, and we have to spend a lot of energy and money on maintaining stability!

……

Eastern part of Mingsha County.

As early as the Xia and Shang dynasties, this area was a fertile plain where peoples such as the Qiang and Rong tribes grazed their livestock.

During the Qin and Han dynasties, people from the Guandong region migrated here to cultivate the land.

After that, dynasties changed, and people sometimes herded livestock and sometimes farmed, eventually forming a semi-agricultural, semi-pastoral lifestyle.

Soil erosion has become increasingly severe, turning many areas into barren loess hills.

Chapter 3880 Inciting Rebellion

In the first few decades after the founding of the Western Xia Dynasty, the government organized the people to dig irrigation canals.

Over the past few decades, the irrigation canals have long been blocked and abandoned, and the crops have gradually changed from wheat to millet.

In June, the drought worsened.

The three tribal chiefs here jointly summoned more than a dozen former major pastors and landowners to discuss a rebellion.

Chief Xingduobaozhong said angrily, "We surrendered in Lingzhou last year. Although we didn't have any merit, we did suffer a lot."

"Helping to maintain order and move supplies, working themselves to the bone, what do they get in return?"

“That despicable prefect, judge, and commander of Xuanzhou summoned our people to dredge the irrigation canals, but they only managed to dredge the irrigation canals on both sides of the Yellow River.”

"None of our irrigation canals have been dredged!"

“I’ve already inquired about it. Other tribes that dredged irrigation canals in Lingzhou received far more grain than we did!”

"Here, we work ourselves to the bone digging irrigation ditches, and all we get is a little food to survive on."

"And the seeds and livestock that Lingzhou distributed to its people were several times more than what we received here."

"Lingzhou at least provides hoes and sickles, but we don't have any of those here!"

“All of you here are great pastors and landowners. You have nothing to give us after surrendering, yet you want to take away our pastures and farmland.”

"If things are like this in the very first year of the Ming Dynasty, won't things only get harder in the future?"

“I have heard that strange disasters are happening everywhere in the prefectures and counties of the Northwest and Northeast.”

"This must be the spirits of the emperors of the Great Xia Dynasty returning. They will protect us and drive away the Ming army."

"We will raise an army here, and other tribes will raise an army elsewhere. When the time comes, we will elect a member of the royal family to restore the Great Xia!"

Similar scenes have occurred in various parts of Ningxia, but the circumstances vary.

The three uprisings in the east of Mingsha County were indeed forced by the government.

Although farmers and herdsmen were allocated farmland and pasture, they received a severe shortage of relief grain, seeds, and livestock. The government was even too lazy to provide a single farm tool.

The work-for-relief water conservancy projects were only carried out on both sides of the Yellow River, leaving nothing for the barren loess land on this side.

From top to bottom, all social classes were incited to rebel!

But things are different in Shizhou.

As soon as the leaders began to incite unrest, some minor herders ran to report it to the authorities.

It wasn't the shepherd who reported it to the authorities, but the junior shepherd.

In agricultural areas, there are large landowners and small and medium-sized landowners.

In the grassland regions, there were also large and small herders. This was true of the Liao Dynasty, and it was also true of the Western Xia Dynasty.

Small and medium-sized herders are similar to "good families" on the grasslands and belong to the main group that is conscripted into the army.

At least half of the soldiers in the larger elite units of the Western Xia army came from small and medium-sized herding families, because they had the financial resources to maintain warhorses, weapons and armor.

The Liao and Western Xia dynasties suffered from the same disease.

Frequent wars, corruption, and increased mergers have led to increasing poverty and a shrinking number of the social backbone class (small and medium-sized pastors).

As a result, tax revenue and manpower were affected, and the combat effectiveness of the recruited troops declined sharply.

You can understand it as the middle class in a modern country being increasingly smaller and more impoverished!

Many small ranchers are so poor that they have to work as shepherds for other ranchers.

In other words, small landlords went to work as tenant farmers.

Last year, the Ming Dynasty confiscated grasslands and farmland, targeting only large landowners and ranchers.

Chapter 3881 Chaos in the Northwest

The majority of small and medium-sized landowners and pastoralists, however, remained unmoved.

Although their assets remained unchanged, their taxes and military service were reduced, making them feel relaxed and hopeful.

Now that the big landowners and large pastors are inciting rebellion, how could all the small and medium-sized landowners and pastors possibly be willing to follow them?

Some people were so incited that they lost their ability to think.

Some people, incited by the incitement, were so frightened that they immediately went to report it to the authorities!

Upon receiving the tip, the commander of Shizhou immediately led his troops to attack.

Before those large landowners and ranchers could even coordinate their rebellion, they were all arrested by the Ming garrison and treated as rebels.

To be honest, as long as the civil and military officials in each prefecture and county don't cause trouble, those remnants of the Western Xia won't be able to cause any trouble.

Because the Ming government united the majority of people, including small and medium-sized landowners, small and medium-sized herders, farmers and herders, all of whom stood on the side of the Ming!

They might not dare to openly refuse to rebel, but someone would definitely go to the government to report the news, and the government would be able to quickly mobilize troops to suppress it.

If a certain prefecture or county experiences a major disturbance, then the civil and military officials there must be involved in a problem.

The unrest in Mingsha County was quite large. Nearly 10,000 rebels crossed mountains and ridges and were only discovered when they reached the fertile land on the east bank of the Yellow River.

Before this, not a single person had reported it to the authorities.

The people on the east bank of the Yellow River were either coerced into joining the rebels or killed for refusing to rebel.

Some of those killed were even immigrants from Shaanxi.

They didn't even have the right to choose; those who were identified were immediately beheaded!

Just as the rebel army was crossing the river, the people on the west bank fled into the city, but the county magistrate refused to open the gates, fearing that spies had infiltrated the crowd.