Chapter 485
Adopted Daughter
Chapter 485 Adopted Daughter
early morning.
A barefoot starving child rocked its mother, but the emaciated woman curled up on the ground without opening her eyes.
"mother!"
The child shook the mother, trying to wake her up, she was hungry, but the mother fell asleep forever.
"Hey,"
The refugees in the nearby shack heard the sound and looked at this scene, but their expressions were numb. People starved to death almost every day.
The situation in the refugee camp in Laizhou Bay is considered good. At least two times a day, they can line up to get porridge. Most of those who can make it here can survive, and countless hungry people died on the way here.
On the side of the road and in the ditches, there are corpses of starving people everywhere.
"My God, when is this a head?"
On the other side, an old man was crying. He was old and his legs and feet were not good. Along the way, his teenage daughter pulled a car and fled here with the refugee team. Finally arrived, but the daughter who had only eaten porridge, After one night, he was still dead.
She curled up beside the car, with bare feet, messy hair braided in a mess, and dirty and torn clothes. She died like this last night.
The old man heard the voice here in the morning and woke up to find that his daughter was also dead.
He sat there crying in despair, and finally supported his hands, dragged his immobile legs, and crawled up to his daughter step by step, hugging the already cold daughter in his arms, crying extremely sad and desperate.
The whole family went out to flee, and finally he was the only one left after death.
A few men with red cloth strips wrapped around their arms came over. They were the corpse collection team in the refugee camp, and they were also refugees.
"Sorry!"
The task of the men was to dispose of the dead bodies in the camp. These dead bodies would be taken away and buried in pits. As the weather was getting hotter, if they were not disposed of in time, the refugee camp would be prone to plague outbreaks.
They have to take away many corpses every day. Even these people were fleeing from famine and hunger, and some family members died on the road.
A Western missionary came over, came up to check, then held up the cross and spoke in Fanhua.
The old man angrily refused, not letting him approach.
"I don't want foreign monks to save me, go away."
The priests were not annoyed when they were rejected, and they were still working hard. These were Jesuit priests from Macau, and they came with another batch of guns and artillery mercenaries, as well as a new batch of artillery.
After meeting the emperor, they followed the emperor's suggestion and established a church hospital and a church in Denglai. While preaching, they saved people and planned to build an orphanage.
The refugees are a little afraid of these deep-eyed, tall-nosed and red-haired Fans, but these people give porridge, give medical aid, and even help with salvation, restraint, and adoption of orphans, etc., but they gradually gain the favor of some refugees.
Zhu Yihai is still open to the actions of these Portuguese and Spanish missionaries. First of all, he is now in close contact with Macau. Although he has now established a gun factory in Zhoushan and other places, Macau still has a steady stream of energy. Provide mercenaries, especially qualified gunners and sailors etc.
Secondly, Zhu Yihai started trade cooperation with Portugal and Spain, not only buying firearms and hiring gunners, but also including the ongoing joint construction of sailing warships, and even joint attacks on the Dutch.
Based on these cooperations, as long as the Jesuits can act within the boundaries he drew, Zhu Yihai still allows it.
Moreover, these missionaries are not only preaching, most of them are quite capable, basically they are proficient in mathematics, know how to cast cannons and guns, and even medicine, so after they come, they also serve as the imperial camp He served as a staff officer, consultant, etc., and even served as a medical officer.
As far as the Shandong governor and the imperial camp are concerned, they are actually helping the refugees, but the problem is that there are too many of them now, and they cannot be rescued.
With the expansion of the imperial battalion operation and the Qing army's counterattack, not only Denglai was fighting everywhere, but the whole Shandong, even Beizhi and Liaoguan in the north, and Xuhuai in the south were all fighting.
Troubled.
The war will inevitably involve the people, especially now that the Qing army is short of supplies, so it can only further plunder the people.
However, the Tartars' sea-moving order and the order of abandoning the Huai River made countless people homeless refugees. They all knew that Denglai was visited by the Son of Heaven in person, and there were boats to evacuate the people to Anding. In the wealthy Jiangnan, countless people who know the news are rushing here.
Even the Han people in Liaodong are coming here now.
Huang Zongxi has been busy with the refugee resettlement issue, prioritizing the evacuation of those craftsmen and scholars, Laizhou, Dengzhou, Changshan, Weihai, Yantai, Chengshan, Qingdao, Yuzhou, Chongming, one-stop relay transportation.
But far from enough.
There are too many refugees.
He is also engaged in local resettlement, reclamation and supplementary cultivation, fishing and hunting, etc., but these are far from enough in the face of seemingly endless refugees.
Even if only two meals of gruel are served every day, the pressure is enormous.
Hunger, disease, etc. continue to take away the lives of hungry people. Even if it is summer now, and it is not the worst winter, there are still many dead people.
Husbands lose their wives, mothers lose their children, and the children are left alone.
Huang Zongxi established many temporary refugee settlements and transfer points according to the order, and organized refugees to save themselves and self-govern.
But there is a lack of medical care and food, and even less food.
Human life is worthless, falling down like a candle blown by the wind.
The most pitiful thing is an orphan like that little girl, whose parents, siblings, etc. all died, and finally became a poor orphan.
The governor's yamen had to allocate additional supplies and food, set up a special orphan camp, take these orphans together to raise them, and then give priority to transferring them to the rear of the south of the Yangtze River as soon as possible.
Although these children are so young, they can't produce any value, but the emperor ordered them to be saved.
They are hope, the future.
In the Laizhou Bay refugee camp, apart from a small number of officials, most of them are Baojiading selected from among the refugees. There are also those who clean up, and there are also those who take care of children and take care of the elderly temporarily.
Every refugee camp is a temporary refuge for one side.
Every arriving refugee will be registered in the file at the first time, and then after being cleaned up, a temporary shack will be arranged, and an ID card will be given, and then diverted or temporarily expropriated according to different situations.
The little girl seemed to finally understand from the sighs of the crowd beside her that her mother would never wake up, so she began to cry loudly.
Along the way, she also lost several family members. Her mother was the last relative, but she also fell asleep forever.
Zhu Yihai visited this No. 37 refugee camp today, and saw this poor girl from a distance.
This is just a microcosm of war. From Apocalypse to Chongzhen to the present, civil wars and foreign wars have been fought for decades in the late Ming Dynasty. There are too many such tragedies caused by natural disasters and wars.
There are so many.
In the page-by-page official history, many times, even a few words are not qualified to mention it. Many tragedies that killed thousands of people in battle and starved to death are often only recorded in a few words.
Zhu Yihai walked up to the little girl and squatted down.
He took out a candy.
The sucrose produced in Lingnan is processed and refined by the yellow mud decolorization method, so that the sucrose becomes white sugar.
The white sugar is processed again, and finally becomes a piece of rock sugar.
good smell.
Most people can't enjoy this thing in peacetime, and the little girl is still crying.
"Girl, what's your name?"
Zhu Yihai picked her up from the cold woman.
Looking at this girl carefully, I feel that she may be four or five years old, or three or four years old. She is skinny and skinny, and she is extremely light when hugged.
It looks like a big head and a bulging stomach, but the limbs are as thin as bamboo.
Zhu Yihai stuffed the candy into the girl's mouth, maybe the candy was too sweet, this young girl who had suffered so much in the world had never tasted this taste, she couldn't help being attracted, and she didn't cry so hard.
The body collection team took the woman away, and Zhu Yihai took the child off for a ride, and finally took a wooden hairpin from the woman and left it for the child as a final souvenir.
The girl finished eating the candy and was tired from crying. Finally, holding her mother's wooden hairpin tightly in her hand, she fell into a deep sleep in Zhu Yihai's arms.
"My lord, let this girl be handed over to the servant girl, and the servant girl will be sent to the orphan camp."
At this time, the girl was startled in her sleep, cried a few times, and then grabbed Zhu Yihai even tighter.
"Forget it, let this girl stay."
"My lord, she is too dirty, there are lice crawling in her hair, there must be fleas on her body, she is too unclean, maybe she may be sick."
Zhu Yihai waved his hand, "These are all my people, they are so pitiful, I have an unshirkable responsibility, since we met today, it's all fate, let's stay, wait for her to wake up, bathe her and kill the insects, From now on, I will take care of her, and I will adopt her as my adopted daughter."
Liu Chao looked at this little orphan, he was not cute at all, just like a poor wild cat, but the emperor's words touched him, thinking that he was an orphan back then, almost freezing to death in the cold winter night, and later became the old eunuch of the palace Met and adopted him.
"The emperor is really a benevolent king."
"There's no need to say that. In this rotten era, each of us should have more compassion and compassion. We must let this dark world have a glimmer of hope."
Liu Chao was very moved, and then proposed to take in some male orphans from the orphan camp, and then eunuch them as little eunuchs when they grow stronger?
"They are miserable enough, how can we give them another knife?"
"My lord, just because they are pitiful enough, if they can enter the palace with a single cut, it is actually a great mercy. At least they don't have to worry about food and clothing, and don't have to worry about tomorrow."
Zhu Yihai was very touched by these words, he was benevolent after being castrated since he was a child.
"From this day forward, these poor orphans will never be castrated again,"
"In the future, if the palace wants to employ people, they can only be castrated from criminals, enemy prisoners and other descendants, and they must be strictly reviewed."
The little girl suddenly cried again, Zhu Yihai hugged her and patted her gently, and slowly she fell asleep again.
"What a sensible girl," Zhu Yihai said to Liu Chao, "If you have the heart, you can go to the orphan camp to pick a boy to adopt, and in the future, you can pass on incense to you, and even serve you as a filial piety when you get old."
"Thank you, my lord."
"In this shitty world, if you can live one more life, you can live one more. I want to draw up a Taoist decree and call on the officials and soldiers of the court to encourage the adoption of an orphan if conditions permit.
The Ministry of Household Affairs may even consider whether to set up a special account and provide an annual allowance to the adoptive families of these orphans. "
(End of this chapter)
early morning.
A barefoot starving child rocked its mother, but the emaciated woman curled up on the ground without opening her eyes.
"mother!"
The child shook the mother, trying to wake her up, she was hungry, but the mother fell asleep forever.
"Hey,"
The refugees in the nearby shack heard the sound and looked at this scene, but their expressions were numb. People starved to death almost every day.
The situation in the refugee camp in Laizhou Bay is considered good. At least two times a day, they can line up to get porridge. Most of those who can make it here can survive, and countless hungry people died on the way here.
On the side of the road and in the ditches, there are corpses of starving people everywhere.
"My God, when is this a head?"
On the other side, an old man was crying. He was old and his legs and feet were not good. Along the way, his teenage daughter pulled a car and fled here with the refugee team. Finally arrived, but the daughter who had only eaten porridge, After one night, he was still dead.
She curled up beside the car, with bare feet, messy hair braided in a mess, and dirty and torn clothes. She died like this last night.
The old man heard the voice here in the morning and woke up to find that his daughter was also dead.
He sat there crying in despair, and finally supported his hands, dragged his immobile legs, and crawled up to his daughter step by step, hugging the already cold daughter in his arms, crying extremely sad and desperate.
The whole family went out to flee, and finally he was the only one left after death.
A few men with red cloth strips wrapped around their arms came over. They were the corpse collection team in the refugee camp, and they were also refugees.
"Sorry!"
The task of the men was to dispose of the dead bodies in the camp. These dead bodies would be taken away and buried in pits. As the weather was getting hotter, if they were not disposed of in time, the refugee camp would be prone to plague outbreaks.
They have to take away many corpses every day. Even these people were fleeing from famine and hunger, and some family members died on the road.
A Western missionary came over, came up to check, then held up the cross and spoke in Fanhua.
The old man angrily refused, not letting him approach.
"I don't want foreign monks to save me, go away."
The priests were not annoyed when they were rejected, and they were still working hard. These were Jesuit priests from Macau, and they came with another batch of guns and artillery mercenaries, as well as a new batch of artillery.
After meeting the emperor, they followed the emperor's suggestion and established a church hospital and a church in Denglai. While preaching, they saved people and planned to build an orphanage.
The refugees are a little afraid of these deep-eyed, tall-nosed and red-haired Fans, but these people give porridge, give medical aid, and even help with salvation, restraint, and adoption of orphans, etc., but they gradually gain the favor of some refugees.
Zhu Yihai is still open to the actions of these Portuguese and Spanish missionaries. First of all, he is now in close contact with Macau. Although he has now established a gun factory in Zhoushan and other places, Macau still has a steady stream of energy. Provide mercenaries, especially qualified gunners and sailors etc.
Secondly, Zhu Yihai started trade cooperation with Portugal and Spain, not only buying firearms and hiring gunners, but also including the ongoing joint construction of sailing warships, and even joint attacks on the Dutch.
Based on these cooperations, as long as the Jesuits can act within the boundaries he drew, Zhu Yihai still allows it.
Moreover, these missionaries are not only preaching, most of them are quite capable, basically they are proficient in mathematics, know how to cast cannons and guns, and even medicine, so after they come, they also serve as the imperial camp He served as a staff officer, consultant, etc., and even served as a medical officer.
As far as the Shandong governor and the imperial camp are concerned, they are actually helping the refugees, but the problem is that there are too many of them now, and they cannot be rescued.
With the expansion of the imperial battalion operation and the Qing army's counterattack, not only Denglai was fighting everywhere, but the whole Shandong, even Beizhi and Liaoguan in the north, and Xuhuai in the south were all fighting.
Troubled.
The war will inevitably involve the people, especially now that the Qing army is short of supplies, so it can only further plunder the people.
However, the Tartars' sea-moving order and the order of abandoning the Huai River made countless people homeless refugees. They all knew that Denglai was visited by the Son of Heaven in person, and there were boats to evacuate the people to Anding. In the wealthy Jiangnan, countless people who know the news are rushing here.
Even the Han people in Liaodong are coming here now.
Huang Zongxi has been busy with the refugee resettlement issue, prioritizing the evacuation of those craftsmen and scholars, Laizhou, Dengzhou, Changshan, Weihai, Yantai, Chengshan, Qingdao, Yuzhou, Chongming, one-stop relay transportation.
But far from enough.
There are too many refugees.
He is also engaged in local resettlement, reclamation and supplementary cultivation, fishing and hunting, etc., but these are far from enough in the face of seemingly endless refugees.
Even if only two meals of gruel are served every day, the pressure is enormous.
Hunger, disease, etc. continue to take away the lives of hungry people. Even if it is summer now, and it is not the worst winter, there are still many dead people.
Husbands lose their wives, mothers lose their children, and the children are left alone.
Huang Zongxi established many temporary refugee settlements and transfer points according to the order, and organized refugees to save themselves and self-govern.
But there is a lack of medical care and food, and even less food.
Human life is worthless, falling down like a candle blown by the wind.
The most pitiful thing is an orphan like that little girl, whose parents, siblings, etc. all died, and finally became a poor orphan.
The governor's yamen had to allocate additional supplies and food, set up a special orphan camp, take these orphans together to raise them, and then give priority to transferring them to the rear of the south of the Yangtze River as soon as possible.
Although these children are so young, they can't produce any value, but the emperor ordered them to be saved.
They are hope, the future.
In the Laizhou Bay refugee camp, apart from a small number of officials, most of them are Baojiading selected from among the refugees. There are also those who clean up, and there are also those who take care of children and take care of the elderly temporarily.
Every refugee camp is a temporary refuge for one side.
Every arriving refugee will be registered in the file at the first time, and then after being cleaned up, a temporary shack will be arranged, and an ID card will be given, and then diverted or temporarily expropriated according to different situations.
The little girl seemed to finally understand from the sighs of the crowd beside her that her mother would never wake up, so she began to cry loudly.
Along the way, she also lost several family members. Her mother was the last relative, but she also fell asleep forever.
Zhu Yihai visited this No. 37 refugee camp today, and saw this poor girl from a distance.
This is just a microcosm of war. From Apocalypse to Chongzhen to the present, civil wars and foreign wars have been fought for decades in the late Ming Dynasty. There are too many such tragedies caused by natural disasters and wars.
There are so many.
In the page-by-page official history, many times, even a few words are not qualified to mention it. Many tragedies that killed thousands of people in battle and starved to death are often only recorded in a few words.
Zhu Yihai walked up to the little girl and squatted down.
He took out a candy.
The sucrose produced in Lingnan is processed and refined by the yellow mud decolorization method, so that the sucrose becomes white sugar.
The white sugar is processed again, and finally becomes a piece of rock sugar.
good smell.
Most people can't enjoy this thing in peacetime, and the little girl is still crying.
"Girl, what's your name?"
Zhu Yihai picked her up from the cold woman.
Looking at this girl carefully, I feel that she may be four or five years old, or three or four years old. She is skinny and skinny, and she is extremely light when hugged.
It looks like a big head and a bulging stomach, but the limbs are as thin as bamboo.
Zhu Yihai stuffed the candy into the girl's mouth, maybe the candy was too sweet, this young girl who had suffered so much in the world had never tasted this taste, she couldn't help being attracted, and she didn't cry so hard.
The body collection team took the woman away, and Zhu Yihai took the child off for a ride, and finally took a wooden hairpin from the woman and left it for the child as a final souvenir.
The girl finished eating the candy and was tired from crying. Finally, holding her mother's wooden hairpin tightly in her hand, she fell into a deep sleep in Zhu Yihai's arms.
"My lord, let this girl be handed over to the servant girl, and the servant girl will be sent to the orphan camp."
At this time, the girl was startled in her sleep, cried a few times, and then grabbed Zhu Yihai even tighter.
"Forget it, let this girl stay."
"My lord, she is too dirty, there are lice crawling in her hair, there must be fleas on her body, she is too unclean, maybe she may be sick."
Zhu Yihai waved his hand, "These are all my people, they are so pitiful, I have an unshirkable responsibility, since we met today, it's all fate, let's stay, wait for her to wake up, bathe her and kill the insects, From now on, I will take care of her, and I will adopt her as my adopted daughter."
Liu Chao looked at this little orphan, he was not cute at all, just like a poor wild cat, but the emperor's words touched him, thinking that he was an orphan back then, almost freezing to death in the cold winter night, and later became the old eunuch of the palace Met and adopted him.
"The emperor is really a benevolent king."
"There's no need to say that. In this rotten era, each of us should have more compassion and compassion. We must let this dark world have a glimmer of hope."
Liu Chao was very moved, and then proposed to take in some male orphans from the orphan camp, and then eunuch them as little eunuchs when they grow stronger?
"They are miserable enough, how can we give them another knife?"
"My lord, just because they are pitiful enough, if they can enter the palace with a single cut, it is actually a great mercy. At least they don't have to worry about food and clothing, and don't have to worry about tomorrow."
Zhu Yihai was very touched by these words, he was benevolent after being castrated since he was a child.
"From this day forward, these poor orphans will never be castrated again,"
"In the future, if the palace wants to employ people, they can only be castrated from criminals, enemy prisoners and other descendants, and they must be strictly reviewed."
The little girl suddenly cried again, Zhu Yihai hugged her and patted her gently, and slowly she fell asleep again.
"What a sensible girl," Zhu Yihai said to Liu Chao, "If you have the heart, you can go to the orphan camp to pick a boy to adopt, and in the future, you can pass on incense to you, and even serve you as a filial piety when you get old."
"Thank you, my lord."
"In this shitty world, if you can live one more life, you can live one more. I want to draw up a Taoist decree and call on the officials and soldiers of the court to encourage the adoption of an orphan if conditions permit.
The Ministry of Household Affairs may even consider whether to set up a special account and provide an annual allowance to the adoptive families of these orphans. "
(End of this chapter)